No Easy Hope
by SunshineNGunpowder21
Summary: Aubrey, a soldier on a mission to Rescue and Rebuild...no matter how distant a dream it is in the new infected world. Wounded, she stumbles upon Ricks group but after a tragedy befalls the prison, she is forced into action to prove herself to them. In the chaos of the world outside, she is pursued by a new threat: someone who will stop at nothing to get what she has. DarylxOC
1. Prologue

**Thank you for looking into my new story No Easy Hope! It's definitely going to be different then what I normally write and I'm really excited to test my skills! After all we really don't know what happened to the soldiers out there in the Walking Dead… Well sort of… It's a long story but not like you are used to. So no owny Walking Dead or Remaining. **** It will be interesting what you think of Aubrey and how the group may see her! Eventually they will find her but not yet! **

**Please let me know what you think! Rated M for Language and Cuddly Context later ^^**

**Prologue**

Aubrey Thomson stood in the center the carpeted living room. The soft polyester fibers felt like sandpaper on her bare feet. The 72-degree temperature of the room felt hot one moment, and too cold the next. The walls of the room were closing in and stale. Everything was frustrating.

Monotonous.

The sameness of her secure unit buzzed in her ears and drove her to frustration with her mind begging to find something to entertain herself other then staring blankly at the empty monitor screen of her computer. Her clammy left hand planted on her hip, her right bounced a tennis ball in front of her. Still the computer stared back unblinking… To the side, her German Shepherd, Grimm, sat and regarded the bouncing ball with quiet intensity, his eyes following up and down with the even rhythm counting the endless seconds. Her lungs clawed for air like someone buried alive as she tried to take an easy calm sigh. Words punched through the riptide of blood rushing past her ears: "The only Easy Day Was Yesterday."

She opened her eyes and the air reached her lungs but the words still hung before her, touchable now. Crude and simple. Like the sentiment it bore. "The only Easy Day was Yesterday." She wondered how true those words were going to be. Aubrey had spent the better part of the day in front of her computer, reading the same news bulletins that had been displayed for the past week. No one had updated the stories since June 25th… Images of burning cities, overcrowded refugee camps, and violence on the scale of genocide remained untouched. No turnaround. No good news.

No cure.

It was now July 3rd.

Most articles on the news websites were dated June 25th. One or two were dated June 26th. The ones from the 26th were just blurbs. US military recalling all overseas troops back to the homeland.

Martial law was in effect.

Sam had confirmed all of this yesterday, but despite the look on his face, he reassured Aubrey that it would all be over soon. Maybe another week at most. "Just hang in there," he had said with a reassuring yet sad smile. There had been something about his eyes that had changed however. Aubrey had noticed the moment his face appeared on the screen with bags under his eyes and messy hair with his button up shirt un-ironed and ragged. There was no longer a tie or dark Dress Blue jacket with his many ribbons of honor adorning the left side. Just a tired stressed man looking back, giving what she knew had to be forced hope.

Sighing once again, Aubrey realized that she had inadvertently been tempting Grimm with the bouncing ball and tossed it in the air. Grimm let it bounce once, than snagged it in midair. He smiled and wagged his tail, deeply satisfied. Completely ignorant. But that was the beauty of a dog.

Looking around once again, grey eyes took in the same building. She had been ordered to stay in the bunker while her squad tried to ship in from overseas. They were supposed to return to her three days ago but Sam had smiled and said that there were some minor delays. She had hoped that everything would be alright and they would return back safely however she was beginning to worry. Being in the Security Forces was enough of a reason for her to leave to the states earlier apparently as a MWD (Military Working Dog handler). After shipping from Korea, she had arrived in Georgia shortly after with nearly no real news how the Country's status. Surely whatever outbreak there was, they would have it under control somewhat, right? With the Air Force technology, she only hoped that there would be some news soon.

She was really getting tired of sitting around in a bunker, not that it was a bad place. It contained almost every comfort you could think of. It was a little over 900 square feet, with a kitchen, den with a big TV, a bedroom with a king-size bed, and a bathroom with a large tub next to the shower. It was stocked with a week of fresh food, three months of freeze dried meals, and three month's worth of water. Yes, Aubrey's bunker had everything. Except human interaction.

And the freedom to leave.

A few weeks after she was locked in on previous assignments with her team, Sam's face would appear on the computer screen, smiling and telling them to "come back to the land of the living." That was his signature, "it's-all-over" phrase. But Sam would also be on Aubrey's team's computer every day at 1200 hours, to give Aubrey an update. Not once in all the days Aubrey had been restricted to her bunker had Sam been even a minute late to update her.

Sam had not appeared today.

She checked the digital clock on the wall above the computer. 18:34

Her stomach dropped to her feet as she considered the possibilities. Her mind took her to a place without controls or any central government. A place where a disease, or a virus, or some kind of plague had brought humanity back to the stone-age. Complete collapse of civilization. People going crazy, murdering other people, looting and pillaging, warlords seizing control in power vacuums created by fractured governments.

This could be her reality in 30 days.

Picturing it all, she felt sick. She looked down at Grimm, who sat clenching the tennis ball in his mouth and waited for her to do something. The thought of the end of the world was like trying to swallow a mouthful of vinegar. Her mind completely rejected it trying to focus on something else.

Tomorrow was Independence Day…

_That's a first. Locked in a bunker on Independence Day. That's fucking un-American_, she thought. _I swear to God, I am going to chew Sam the fuck out... I hope he's okay. He's gotta be okay. I am a contingency plan. Contingency plans are for contingencies. Contingencies don't happen. At least not on this scale. _

Thinking back to what her team had been ordered to do in case of an emergency like this only made her thoughts run wild. "Seal the doors. Keep each other safe. Sam is your assigned Communication's relater. If communication ends then wait 30 days to leave your bunker and start your mission."

A mission? What mission? She had no clue what the hell was going on! But that was the whole idea of being in a bunker.

Two years ago, freshly out of the Air Force Academy and on her first deployment, she had instantly made herself stick out of her previous squadron. She wasn't a tall woman by any means and was well in her early 20's however her sheer willpower to prove herself was enough to get the attention of people higher in command. After a few extra missions to prove their theory, she was assigned to a team of 5 that consisted of an assortment of military branches. The leader of the team was a well respected and very tough Marine. Second in command was an Army Sergeant along with another army soldier and a Marine. She was in the middle of the group and had been assigned the MWD responsibility. With Grimm as her trusted partner, she was able to sneak through enemy camps virtually unnoticed and also scout ahead through dangerous territory. She pulled her weight as everyone did in the team until the news of an outbreak had occurred and she found herself on a flight straight to the States once again to wait for her remaining teammates to join her in the Bunker until further orders.

The teams entire purpose was for reasons such as an epidemic like such. If Government was in danger, then it was up to the remaining soldiers to recreate the status of power once again. That would be the mission at hand. That would be her purpose with her team… However her team was absent and Sam had not responded. The absolute rule was if communication ceased then she had to wait 30 days before leaving to start her mission to restore order to the survivors. That was easier said than done seeing as she was blind from any information on what to expect.

"Keep each other safe…"

She was alone now…

"If communication ends, wait 30 days before leaving the bunker…"

Wait 30 days…

For what? What lay beyond the safety of the bunker?

Sighing she took a seat on the chair in front of her desk and started her internet up before typing at her email to another team in the neighboring state of South Carolina.

_Have you heard anything from Sam?_

She tapped send and leaned back while Grimm came up to set the ball in her lap. She smiled tightly and scratched behind his ear as a sudden ding came from the computer. Kevin must have been waiting for an email to respond so quickly.

_Nothing yet… maybe he was busy… might hear from him tomorrow__._

_What the heck is going on?_

Another ding seconds later. _I'm not sure… But we shouldn't be talking._

A frown pulled her lips and she left it at that knowing Kevin was right. The Government may just be busy but communicating with other teams was a violation to code until they left the bunker or given orders otherwise. Looking back to Grimm who smiled back happily she furrowed her brows in frustration.

"Fuck it," she told Grimm. "He'll call."

**Oh I know there are a lot of stories out there with the OC and a dog… Let me explain I am leaving for the Air Force in June and will eventually be a Military Working Dog handler. (It's a dream job.) So there. I explained why it is necessary for my character to also have said dog. **

**And before I anyone asks, I will still be updating my story. It will have about a 2-3 month leave of absence from June to September but I will continue as soon as I get my laptop back **** Until then I would love to hear your reviews and I will update as much as possible before I leave. **


	2. Chapter 1

**So I hurried with the next chapter so that you wouldn't be left with some small excerpt to base opinions on :) Hope you enjoy! **

**Walking Dead and the Remaining are not mine. But I will use my fancy license to switch things up. So Duane never was killed by his mother… And Rick never found Morgan in that abandoned town.**

_******PS Aubrey was in Korea under a secret operation with her team when the virus broke out the year before. Government was still active and was keeping it under wraps against foreign countries who could have used the information against the American People. The virus had spread through the East Coast and that was when it started spreading to the Central States. Once the ****contamination was getting out of control, Government recalled overseas troops and many were sent underground with a briefing of the bacteria and their new assignment. The Government still tried to keep the power and positive mine that they could over come it (even with no power to the States and people being thrust to survive) however the power fell and contact was lost to all soldiers. That's why Aubrey is so new to the events of current time when Rick's group has survived for a decent year. **_

Chapter 1

It was July 18th when Aubrey woke up and finally admitted to herself that Sam was not going to call. There was no conceivable technical problem that could last for nearly a week and a half and not be repaired. If Sam needed to contact them, he would have been able to do it by now. He would have told them to stand down if they were not needed.

After realizing this, Aubrey stayed in her bed for the first half of the day. She didn't get up to eat or drink until almost 1500 hours, until Grimm was restlessly growling at the side of the bed. Although Grimm could have easily walked into the other room and relieved himself, a good Military trained dog did nothing without the consent of his master. Aubrey accompanied him to the back room to do his business. Moments later with a happy k-9 prancing beside her, she threw Grimm's soiled pads in the toilet before flushing the entire package down.

The only easy day was yesterday, because yesterday is done. Time to suck it up.

Aubrey exercised.

She wasn't excited about being thrust into a dying world and watching civilization crumble— God, that sounded crazy— but she did feel a sense of urgency now. She didn't know what lay beyond the sealed doors of her bunker. She wanted to be in the best shape of her life. She wanted to give herself the best chance at survival. Yes, this was really happening. How bad it had become topside was anyone's guess, but the fact that she had not received any sort of communication meant only one very bad thing: The United States government no longer existed.

* * *

It was July 24th, less then fifteen days until she was on the move. Aubrey could no longer stand it. She had had enough of exercising around and entertaining herself. She opened the door to a large closet behind her couch and flipped on the light. The florescent bulb flickered then glowed brightly, illuminating several wire racks of equipment. Aubrey always thought she could have spent the rest of her career as the quartermaster of a base— there was nothing she loved more than the sight of neat racks of equipment.

From the bottom of the closet she yanked out a very large, coyote-tan backpack and tossed it on the floor. The pack would hold everything she would need. Fully stuffed, it would weigh over 100 lbs but because of her smaller frame of 5' 3", she was only allowed to carry up to 70 lbs average. There was a smaller pack which she also removed and tossed next to the large one. It was also coyote-tan, as she was a firm believer in light colors being the best camouflage. Dark colors attracted the eye. Even in woodland or swamp environments, desert colors were still good. And since Aubrey could potentially need to work in several different types of terrain, most of her gear was coyote tan.

The large pack, or main pack, would hold most of the items she would need on the trip. Various medical supplies, computer equipment, equipment for the maintenance of weapons, food, water, clothing, her sleeping bag, etc. The smaller pack was known as the "Hell pack" and would never leave her side. Because the main pack would be so heavy, it was not realistic to become involved in any sort of tactical engagement while wearing it. If hell broke loose, the main pack was dropped and Aubrey would finish the engagement wearing only her hell-pack, which contained the basics: food and water for a few days, extra magazines for her weapons, very basic first aid supplies, and a single change of clothes.

She also had a handheld GPS device for land navigation. This she set aside next to her hell-pack. That device was her life blood for the mission. Without that GPS device, she was just another survivor.

After arranging all the gear and slipping in on before pacing the room, thinking of what to do with her spare time, she sighed and looked to the bunker door, eyes lingering in mysterious fascination of what lay on the other side before giving up and taking all her gear off. It was a stupid idea to leave the bunker.

Two hours later, Aubrey sat on the couch with the chessboard before her on the coffee table, the pieces in frozen battle, scattered about the board, an invisible strategy forming. Dead soldiers were set to the side of the board, white on the left, black on the right. Across from her, Grimm sat and panted on his black chess pieces. Aubrey had been thinking for a few minutes now, but Grimm was a patient adversary.

"You think you got me, but I'm only luring you into my trap." She looked at Grimm as though she expected a pithy response. Finally she sighed. "You know, the whole sphinx routine is getting old. Not talking doesn't make you the better person, it just makes you a quiet loser." Aubrey shuffled her knight in its L-shaped move and pushed a black bishop out of the way with it. She removed the bishop from the board and set it to the right with the rest of its fallen comrades.

"Yeah," Aubrey nodded. "What do you think about that?"

Grimm sniffed at his king, still safely ensconced behind a row of pawns, then licked it.

"A ballsy move on your part, Grimm. But I don't know if it's going to pay off in the long run." Aubrey eyed the board for a moment and then moved a black rook into a position that forced her white knight to run back from whence it came. After she moved the piece, Aubrey hissed through her teeth. "Ouch. You got me. No, seriously. You're getting better at this. I mean, what's the score? 2-3? 2-2? I know I've won twice. You might be smarter than me."

Grimm rested his chops on the table and huffed, obviously bored with chess. The force of the huff knocked the black king over.

"Oh." She sat back on the couch. "It's like that, is it? I'm not a worthy opponent, so you're just not going to bother with playing me? God, you can be so conceited sometimes." The young woman reached forward and rubbed Grimm on his black head to let him know it was all in good fun. Grimm looked pleased and banged his tail on the ground. After a moment, she sat back on the couch and fiddled with the retention strap on her drop-leg holster. Her eyes restlessly wandered the room and finally came to rest on the door for the second time that day.

The locked door to the outside world.

Well, actually to the basement of her teams' hideaway house. But still... it was freedom. She wanted to open that door.

Strange. She hadn't thought of that before. After so many hours trapped down here, she had never even considered violating the protocols and leaving her bunker early. After all, if there was no US government, then there was no one to give a care if she broke some protocols. If there was a US government, then there was no reason for her to be shut up down here for the next week and a half. It made sense.

"That," the brunette pointed at Grimm, garnering a look of confusion. "Is dangerous thinking." Aubrey stood up and walked to the door, mumbling to herself. "Protocols are meant to protect you. The rules are there to guide you when you are not thinking clearly, such as if you have been in a sunless, underground bunker for the past month. Like me. I am not thinking clearly."

She put her hand on the wheel of the hatch, but didn't spin it. Slowly she leaned in and put her pierced ear to the metal. The steel door was cold to the touch and smelled faintly like the inside of a warship— metallic and oily. The sound from the other side was complete, tomb-like silence. Aubrey withdrew her ear.

She looked at Grimm, who was watching her with what looked like suspicion.

"Well, what do you think?"

Grimm smiled, wagged once, and sauntered forward so that he was standing at the door, facing it. Aubrey wondered if it was as tough for a dog to be indoors this long as it was for a human. She thought that it was probably worse, considering how excited dogs got about going outside; supposed the dog truly missed being outdoors more than she did. To his credit, Grimm was handling his misery very well.

"Can't hurt, I guess." Aubrey rested her small hand on the butt of her pistol. "Well, actually it can hurt a lot. We don't really know what's out there." Somehow the concept of waiting to leave at the 30-day mark, and then being snuffed out within hours of exiting the bunker seemed sickeningly ironic. It would be marginally better then, that if she were going to die upon exiting the bunker, she should do it now, rather than wait another week in misery and loneliness. _Maybe there are people outside. Maybe they're good and maybe they're bad. Maybe they need my help, _Aubrey pondered and turned away from the door and walked back to the closet where all of her gear was still organized on the floor.

Standing over the gear she couldn't help but grimace.

"You know what? This isn't a good idea," she murmured. Grimm tilted his head, ears forward. "You're not gonna go anyway." Aubrey waved him off while thoughts jumbled around in her mind.

Pros and cons of opening the bunker. First of all, she wasn't leaving. Just opening the door, taking a quick peek out into the world.

Recon. That's all it was. And like any good special operations soldier, she needed recon in order to plan her mission effectively. Recon equals intelligence, equals good plans, equals victory. It's all very simple. She wasn't even going to violate the protocol. Protocol stated not to leave the bunker until 30 days after her last transmission from command. She would not be leaving. She would be scouting out the area of insertion. Possibly clear it of any threats. Make sure that when she did leave the bunker at the appropriate time, it was smooth sailing. There was no directive that stated she couldn't recon the area. Yeah... Recon.

"Okay." Aubrey nodded to herself as if it all made everything better, then pointed at Grimm. "But you have to stay here."

Grimm didn't register the words, but heard Aubrey's tone and saw her point. He lowered himself to the ground, lying with his head up, curiously observing his master as she readied herself. Boots went on first, a pair of Bates Desert Assault Boots. She put on her pistol belt, then attached her drop-leg to it before the last thing she put on was her gloves. The young woman breathed a couple of times and walked to the hatch. She reached for the wheel, then thought better of it and returned to the closet, mumbling again to herself. "Can't be too prepared..."

She grabbed her hell-pack and slung it over her slender shoulders before she snapped the chest belt on and pivoted her torso several times, then tightened the shoulder straps, then repeated the pivoting. Satisfied that the pack was secure on herself, she walked back to the door and grabbed the wheel with both hands. She looked at Grimm, as though seeking approval from the black shepherd as amber eyes studied her curiously.

"Fuck it. I'm doin' it." She cranked the wheel hard to the left and broke the seal.

She didn't know that she had just made a horrible and irreversible decision.

* * *

Glenn pulled a map from his bag and stretched it across one of the metal tables in what they considered the "living room". Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and Hershel gathered around the table in a tight huddle while Glenn smoothed the precious paper out with his hand. Throughout the land marks were many towns that had been marked out with crisscross highlighter or circled with numbers of locations they had been through along the Georgia state. The positive note was that they just found out that they were near a larger, more supplied city on the other side of the hills.

The bad note was that the Governor was back to his town with more man power then before he had attacked the prison with the Civilians of Woodbury. It had been two weeks since the discovery of the mad-man's presence returned to the County and there had yet to be any come to blows, with the exception of Glenn, Maggie and Daryl being chased in a wild, cat and mouse game when they tried to gather supplies from their usual town. It seemed the Governor's new playmates were something that they couldn't ignore, with the fact that they were no longer able to scout the town for food, medicine and clothing.

"_They are a bunch of madmen," Glenn had announced in panic to Rick when they had barely managed to return to the Prison three days prior. _

_Rick had looked to Daryl for conformation and he received a grim nod. "Some were ex-military. They were pack'n some hellfire rounds too."_

This did not set well with the group and after a few days to recover from the news, Rick had ordered a meeting to find a solution.

"I have been looking this over last night and Maggie came up with an idea on what town to scavenge at; Cumming City is far enough away that the Governor and his little posse won't be lurking about," Glenn pointed to the name and looked expectantly at the people around him.

Rick put a hand on his hip as the other leaned on the table top while grey eyes scanned the spider web of highways and rivers before he shook his head. "I don't like how far it is from here. It will take two hours to drive there and there are too many things that could go wrong."

"Too many walkers too," Hershel added. "In a city like that there could be hundreds."

Daryl scratched his beard thoughtfully for a moment as blue eyes soaked in the map below. "There is a gated community." The attention of the group landed on him curiously before he continued. "At the outskirts of the city. There is a community that would giv' us a chance to get supplies without hav'n to go into the City."

Rick's gaze turned back to the map below and he stared silently, thinking of the repercussions. After the last battle with the Governor and his little gang of followers, his group had given shelter to the families that were willing to join the prison, including Tyrone, Sasha, and Karen. With the extra mouths to feed, they HAD to get supplies. The small doubt lurked in the back of his mind that maybe he made a bad decision of taking in these people but he quickly shook his head. He knew what he did was right and he had to remember that. However the news of the Governor and his new henchmen running them out of town before they could scavenge was a development they could not afford to ignore_. The damn guy is starving us out…_

There weren't many options left and the need for a necessary risk like this was a hard pill to swallow. But at this moment it was their only choice.

"Alright, but you choose who you want to take with you. You can take the red dodge and the SUV but," he looked to Daryl who met his eyes, "if the situation gets sticky, make sure you bring the SUV back. We can sacrifice the truck."

"We will have to siphon gas… Ya think there will be extra gas canisters here?"

"There was two extra ones in the storage of that bus you brought back," Michonne spoke up. The group looked to her silently and she shrugged. "Got curious." It was a short but decent explanation.

"There you go," Rick nodded with a smirk to Daryl. "You can pick a few people and you can leave today."

* * *

After another minute of listening she felt satisfied and pushed the hatch all the way open. Her head and shoulders now clear of the hatch, she swiveled and gave her surroundings a quick scan with the light on her MK23. She identified the usual occupants of her teams basement: the water heater, the freezer, the tool cabinet, the pile of boxes with Christmas decorations in them. Everything was quiet and undisturbed.

She flicked off the light. Aubrey felt a wash of relief, her body relaxed from tension she hadn't been aware she was holding. The sight of her team's belongings, all those normal, every-day things, still sitting right where they left them made it feel as though the world was the same one she had left over a month ago. Whatever had happened could not be that bad if her teams Captian's light-up Santa statue was still lying in the basement, unharmed and collecting dust until next holiday season.

Feeling more confident, Aubrey pulled herself fully out of the tunnel and knelt next to the hatch. She reached to close it behind her, paused, then pulled her gloved hand back. The hatch lock was disengaged from the exterior by punching a code into a numbered keypad. While she didn't want anyone slipping in behind her while she was out reconning, she also didn't want to be screwing around with the keypad if she needed to beat a hasty retreat. If anyone slipped into the tunnel behind her back, Grimm would discourage them from getting into the bunker. From where she knelt she could see up the basement stairs to the main portion of her team's house. The door at the top was closed, but she could see daylight illuminating the cracks, making it look like a large, glowing white frame hovering in mid-air. She made her way to the bottom of the stairs, keeping the pistol at low-ready and keeping a sharp eye on the frame of light around the door, waiting for a flash of shadow to indicate movement on the other side. At the top of the stairs she repeated her stop-and-listen technique until she felt certain the house was empty. She opened the door and stepped through, quickly this time, checking right, then left... nothing.

The basement door opened into the kitchen area. In front of her was a granite counter top where pans hung from the wall, and cabinets were stacked with glasses and plates. Everything was exactly where she had left it. Through the windows that surrounded the kitchen she looked out into the wooded area around the house. The light from the outside world was so bright after a month in the bunker that it nearly sapped the color out of the greenery, making the leaves appear silver in the flashing sun. It was not only a shock to her eyes, but to her mind. She realized that she had half-expected some post-apocalyptic world, where the trees were charred stumps jutting from the ground and the air was filled with soot. But this was simply the backyard.

Aubrey hesitated for a moment. She could continue to clear the house and property, possibly get a better idea of what was going on, or she could return to the bunker and wait the remaining days out. Forethought told her she had pushed far enough, and should go back... but now curiosity had taken hold and spurred her on.

She turned left, facing the entryway to the living room. Over the top of the couch she could see through the windows that faced the front of the house and the yard beyond. The grass had grown surprisingly long and looked almost waist-high. Large weeds had taken root in the cracks of the driveway and had grown to the height of small sapling trees. A bit past the fence, you could just make out the two-lane blacktop of Jefferson Street, shimmering in the noonday heat. She wasn't in a neighborhood and the nearest house to her team's was about a tenth of a mile down the road.

The Simmons.

There was a footpath that connected this backyard to the Simmons'. It would only take five minutes to skirt the edge of the property and take a look at her neighbors' house to see how they had fared. She figured it would be a decent litmus test of how things were overall. Plus, it was the right thing to do. Even just gaining a vantage point on the Simmons' house would allow her to gauge how bad things truly were. Obviously her own yard would be overgrown since she had been living in a bunker for the past month. It was not necessarily indicative of how the rest of the world was going. If she saw the Simmons' yard clean cut, then obviously things couldn't be that bad.

Aubrey stepped into the living room and swept left and right as she had in the kitchen. All was clear. Her front door was still secured and none of her windows appeared broken or tampered with.

She cupped a hand against the sidelight glass and peered through. Everything seemed very still. The blacktop in the distance shimmered in the July heat, and the waist-high stalks of grass in the front yard lilted motionless in the baking sun. Not a breeze to stir a blade of grass. Aubrey twisted the deadbolt and heard the cylinder disengage with a clack, making her flinch. It sounded like the loudest noise she'd heard in ages. She turned the door knob, felt it catch and release from the doorframe. The weather stripping crackled as the long-sealed door finally separated and swung open. The heat of summer hit her in the face like steam from a boiling pot.

She took the steps, looking to her left, towards the footpath to the Simmons'. The next thing she knew she was falling, landing hard on the ground. She felt the hard concrete bounce the side of her face and the breath came out of her with a whoosh. She heard something shrill, like a woman shrieking. Something had her by the leg. Struggling, she tried to roll onto her back, but felt an iron grip on her ankle, pulling her leg through the stairs into the shadows underneath. Aubrey flailed, kicking with her free leg, then bringing her heel down hard on whatever held her. She felt her boot hit something and then the grip around her ankle was free. Stunned, Aubrey rolled onto her back, holding the pistol between her knees. Two pale, bony arms reached through the stairs, trying to grab at her feet and in the hand of one was a small knife, slashing the air repeatedly in a spastic X pattern. She tried to kick the knife, but the arms retreated under the stairs again.

She scooted backwards and pulled her legs underneath her, trying to gain her feet just as much as her grasp on the sudden attack. Something came out from behind the stairs, scuttling towards her on hands and knees, making noises that she couldn't distinguish as words. Instinct told her to launch with her legs and she thrust her small form backwards and landed again on her back. The attacker seemed smaller but was moving fast. In the half-second before it tried to stab her to death, she had the impression of a young girl wearing a loose white dress, with long, wild hair hanging down around her face. The hesitation was a mistake.

The infected girl reared up and swung down hard, planting the small knife in Aubrey's left thigh. The soldier let out a noise like a cough or a bark and shoved her pistol against the top of the girl's chest and pulled the trigger. She felt the pressure of the blast in her face and watched the back of her gown burst out. Aubrey swung hard with her right knee, catching the person hard in the jaw causing it to fall to the side, pulling the knife out of Aubrey's thigh as she went. Aubrey was on her feet fast, despite the wound to her leg. She breathed rapidly, her chest burning as the Kevlar vest restricted her airflow. She pointed the pistol straight out in front of her, finger on the trigger and backpedaled towards the porch. The girl— 15-years-old was her best guess— was down, but getting up. Even over the rattle of her own breath, Aubrey could hear the gurgling of her chest wound.

"Stay the fuck down!" Aubrey yelled. The girl was standing now, hunched over, strange looking eyes staring from under a hood of tangled hair. It pointed the bloody knife at Aubrey. "Drop that knife!"

She started forward. Aubrey pulled the trigger, instinctively aiming center mass. Three shots in quick succession at near point blank range spattered her chest in red. She stumbled back, but didn't go down. Her breath came out again like she was trying to say something but couldn't form the words. She put one foot in front of the other, and Aubrey turned and took the three wooden stairs to the porch in one bound. The young soldier planted her shoulder into her front door before she spun in the doorway, slammed the front door and locked it, then sprinted for the basement door. She nearly tripped going down the stairs, feeling the pain in her thigh now.

Her footfalls were a rapid tumble and she hit the basement floor, blind in the dark, and groped around for the hatch. Her hand touched cold metal and she heard something banging on the front door upstairs.

"Slow down," she told herself but didn't take her own advice. She nearly dove in, hitting her elbow and the top of her forehead on the frame as she scrambled in. Aubrey slammed the hatch behind her, twisted it to lock it in place, then skipped the ladder rungs and dropped straight to the ground. Pain shot up her leg and her knees buckled, crashing her to the floor before she recovered and stumbled blindly to the bunker door where she ran for a few steps, then slowed to a jog, knowing that it was panic driving her and trying to battle it off. She breathed deep and tried not to think about the girl running swiftly and silently up behind her to slit her throat.

The door to the bunker came into view and Grimm stood up, his head lowered, sensing something was wrong. "Move," Aubrey snapped as she lurched through the door, pushing Grimm out of the way with her wounded leg, then wincing as she realized it was a bad choice. Grimm's attention was fixated down the tunnel eerily with ears perked and tail out iin absolute stillness.

Aubrey swore as she slammed the hatch closed and whipped the wheel into the locked position. She moved quickly to the kitchen sink, pulling open the cabinet doors and grabbing a bottle of alcohol from underneath. With fumbling hands, she spun the cap off and started dousing her leg right there in the middle of the kitchen followed by a moan of pain as the blood diluted down her thigh and her fabric of her pants clung to her like second skin.

After letting the alcohol sink for a moment, she rifled through the pack pulling out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, yanking off the cap and pouring it over the wound. Grey eyes watched as the clear liquid cascaded over the wound, then stung and started to bubble. The more bubbles, the dirtier the wound. There was no telling what the hell was on that knife, or if she had used it to stab or cut someone else that was infected.

Aubrey could see the bacteria as microscopic ants racing through her bloodstream, already beginning to pick away at her frontal lobe. As the hydrogen peroxide did its work, she inspected the wound and thought about the consequences of her ill-fated recon mission.

The young brunette estimated the knife was about three inches long though the blade was only a half inch wide, when the infected person stabbed her she'd pulled it down, slicing open an extra inch of flesh. There was definite muscle damage, but nothing so severe that it would inhibit the soldier's movement. After a few moments of firm, stinging pressure on the wound, she pulled the gauze away and checked the blood flow. The wound filled slowly with blood and trickled over again onto her leg, but the blood wasn't pulsing which meant no arterial damage, and the flow seemed to be abating with the elevation and pressure. Luckily— if you could call it that —the wound was a clean cut so she didn't need to use a scalpel to remove any "nonviable" tissue, or smooth out the edges as you would with a ripping or tearing wound. That would save Aubrey a significant amount of pain.

She put the gauze back down and held it in place with her elbow while both hands worked open the sterile syringe package and used it to draw a few CC's of lidocaine. With carefully trained hands, she cleared the syringe of air and clamped it back in her teeth, then opened the iodine wipe before pulling the bloody gauze pad off and tossed it on the ground, then swabbed the area around the wound with the iodine wipe, staining her skin a yellowish brown. She injected small doses of lidocaine into several areas around her wound, creating the effect of a local anesthetic. When the few CC's of lidocaine were done, she put the cap back on the syringe and dropped it with the bloody gauze.

Aubrey waited a few breaths until the stinging sensation in her leg began to numb, then strung a curved suture needle with the nylon thread. She fished out a pair of hemostats and some small shears to cut the nylon thread, and began stitching the wound closed.

It took five stitches and about ten minutes to close the wound all while she kept replaying the image of the girl coming out from behind the stairs. The spidery way she scuttled towards Aubrey on all fours, the thin arms, only skin and bones, but shockingly powerful. It reminded her of how a person on drugs or who was mentally deranged could display extreme amounts of physical strength and stamina. She figured that it might have something to do with her frontal lobe looking like Swiss cheese.

Was she just an example of how the rest of the world had become?

Her mind pictured crowds, riotous mobs entirely peopled by sick, violent, and superhumanly strong mental patients waving sharp kitchen implements, lead pipes, and other weapons of opportunity. She tried to remember what the girl's face looked like, but all she could remember was her wild, tangled hair and those strange, demented eyes.

Aubrey made up her mind then and there to check on the Simmons. Tomorrow.

It was not an option. Holing up in her bunker had become counterproductive. In another two weeks, things could only be worse. If the Simmons had secured their residence and were waiting for rescue, Aubrey might be their only chance. Besides, rendering aid was her team's primary objective.

A sad sting pierced through her chest at the thought of her team. Where they out there? Unable to make it to the bunker and Safe house? Now stuck fighting, not our enemies, but our once fellow American's?

_Where they safe?_

* * *

Aubrey slept in her combat pants, on top of the covers, with her M4 locked and loaded and tucked in close to her body. Grimm lay on the floor to the side of the bed and even though there was that small ounce of comfort, she still felt lonely and cornered in the dark bunker without her teammates' presence.

She woke several times in the night to find Grimm staring at the bunker door with his ears fully erect. Occasionally, he would emit a low growl, deep in his throat. The dog's attention to the door made the hair stand up on the back of Aubrey's neck. Each time it happened her heart would pound in her head so hard it seemed to make the room shake, and she would think to herself that there was no way she was going to be able to fall back asleep. But each time, she would stare at the door, and find her thoughts wandering, and her heart rate cooling down, and then her eyes would grow heavy once more.

**A biiiiig thanks to those following my story. Sorry for the tiny bit at the prison… I'm sure many would like to see more of our favorite group but unlike some characters, I wanted mine to feel like a real person entering the group, not just a person with a basic story and an easily assumed background… **

**Confused? Sorry :(**

**Thank you so much for the reviews so far! Look forward to hearing what you think of after this. :) **

**The story will pick up within the next two chapters at least :) **


	3. Chapter 2

**Hi to those you are still here!... Not sure if there is anyone other than two readers but I appreciate the reviews! You are keeping me going!**

**Warning for violence and language.**

**I don't own remaining or walking dead**

Chapter 2

Her attitude had transformed overnight, from skeptical to vigilant. She was going to expect and prepare for the absolute worst while her mind had been full of doubts yesterday. Even with the events of yesterday, she didn't want to believe that the world was spiraling out of control, or that it was already in ruins. The extent of the damage to American civilization was as yet unknown however, what she did know, was that she would have to err on the side of caution. If it had been a full-grown man that had attacked her yesterday, she wasn't sure she would be alive. Mistakes in this new reality would be far more costly than Aubrey could afford. On a positive note, she was still asymptomatic.

She didn't feel like bothering with dehydrated scrambled eggs, so she grabbed a handful of Powerbars, shoving one into her mouth and the remaining three into her pack. Quickly after, she washed it down with a hastily mixed "Orange beverage" that came in a small, single-serving packet. It had plenty of vitamin C and carbohydrates for immediate energy. Like energy for running and fighting. Energy she hoped she wouldn't need, but had the jumpy feeling that she would.

After gearing up, she pulled the charging handle of the M4 back halfway, noted the glint of brass waiting in the chamber, and let it slide forward and lock. She flipped the safety off, that was what trigger fingers were for after all and turned to the German shepherd.

"Grimm," Aubrey pointed to a spot next to her foot. "Heel." Grimm's ears perked and he came running over, excited. It was time to work, which, for him, meant fun-fun-fun. He had no idea what was going on in the world, and that was excellent. Good working dogs never realized the horrible situations they were in. That's why Police K9' s wag their tails while attacking armed gunmen. Even one traumatic incident resulting in a negative experience for the dog doing what he was trained to do could ruin it. It was good that Grimm was happy to go outside. But Aubrey sure as hell wasn't.

She looked towards her dog, standing by her right side and looking up at his master expectantly. "Grimm, sneak." This wasn't a normal command, but Aubrey had taught Grimm a few tricks outside of the usual Military training. Grimm immediately pulled his lolling tongue in and his head lowered ever so slightly, his shoulders hunching a bit, giving him the appearance of a wolf stalking its prey. As long as Aubrey kept reminding Grimm to "sneak," the dog would keep low to the ground and wouldn't make a sound. It was almost unnerving for her to watch her canine friend revert back to his feral roots.

Focusing back, she reached forward and opened the bunker door. The dark-bathed tunnel stretched out before her. It looked empty and she felt a bit of relief and supposed she had been expecting the crazed girl from yesterday to be standing there, waiting for her. Surely she was dead. No one could survive that many shots to the chest.

Aubrey and Grimm made their way down the tunnel, both moving silently. While moving, she quietly but with an excited tone told Grimm "good," earning a wag of the tail before she reminded the dog to "sneak," and Grimm went back to sneaking. The young brunette did this without even thinking. The cycle of command, obedience, and reinforcement was second nature to her, and when possible, she would reward the dog with something such as an old, chewed-up rope in her cargo pocket, a toy that Grimm was particularly fond of. It was Grimm's treat for a job well done.

At the ladder, Aubrey went up first to unlock the hatch. She pushed it open and surveyed the basement, much as she had done the previous day. All clear.

She went back down the ladder. "Come on, boy. Up!" She reached down and hoisted Grimm up to the ladder rungs, which he awkwardly navigated. Aubrey strained and gave the big dog a final heave despite her small size and Grimm got his front paws on the ledge and scrambled up into the basement. His master followed him quickly up the ladder, then closed the hatch and punched in the code to lock it. She waited until she heard the click, then turned towards the stairs. In her flight the previous day, she had left the door from the basement into the kitchen standing open which she cursed silently for.

She kept the M4 at a low ready as she moved towards the stairs, with her non-trigger hand patting Grimm. "Stay."

Grimm sat, ears forward, eyes locked on the doorway up the stairs. Normally the dog would go first and seek out the threats to prevent harm to the human counterpart. In this situation, with Grimm as her only partner, and not knowing whether the virus was transmittable from humans to animals, Aubrey did not want Grimm biting any infected people unnecessarily.

She made her way up the stairs and cleared the house, the knot in her gut that was always there before everything went to Hell started to abate as she went through the motions_. _After clearing the house she went to the kitchen and found that Grimm's curiosity had gottenthe best of him and he'd made his way to the top of the stairs and was peering into the kitchen, his nose working the air. Aubrey held back reprimand. Good working dogs were sometimes hard to control.

"Come on." Aubrey tapped her thigh and Grimm padded into the room. "Sneak," she reminded as they made their way to the front door that still stood intact. She edged over to the sidelight and angled her vision around the front porch.

A pale foot lay there, stretched out away from the front door, toes pointed down. The foot was small, petite even. The girl from yesterday, she knew, and fought acid rising in the back of her throat. She stared, though she couldn't see anything above the calf but noticed the skin was gray and waxy-looking. It was covered in scrapes and harsh bruising, as though she'd run recklessly through a patch of briars. The logical part of the young soldier's brain told her that she had to be dead, but something else inside of her cringed, expecting the worst. Aubrey angled her body and pointed her rifle in the approximate location that she felt her head would be; for a moment, the gun felt heavy and awkward in her hands. She didn't want to shoot this girl again, her mind still not grasping the reality. She reached forward and touched the cool metal of the doorknob and swung the door open. To the soldier's relief, the girl lay dead, but her arm had been propped against the door and had fallen when she'd opened it. She was no longer a threat.

Before Aubrey could blink, Grimm rushed in, fascinated and wanting to stick his nose at the sleeping girl.

Quickly, she shoved the dog away with her leg and stated in a stern voice, "No! Leave it... Leave it."

Grimm pressed at her leg until Aubrey gave him a good jab in the ribs with her knee and repeated the command. Finally Grimm stood back with amber eyes watching, but let out a pitiful whine and stared at the dead girl, transfixed. The door was covered in smeared blood and pocked with tiny dents made with the point of her knife. She had somehow managed to crawl onto the porch after being shot several times in the chest with a .45 caliber bullet, and had obviously spent some time pounding on the door, whether in rage, or desperation, or perhaps a bit of both. The front mat was entirely soaked in blood. The sight of blood in large quantities never ceased to turn Aubrey's stomach. There was something so... not Hollywood about it. Artificial blood looked artful and pretty. The splatters were perfect, the pools were all one homogenous color. Paint-by-numbers gore. In reality, the aftermath of a traumatic wound was chaotic and disgusting. There was always some strange chunk of anatomy that came out with the blood flow that made you lean in closer and say to yourself, "What the fuck is that?"

They left the porch, taking the stairs very carefully this time. Every shadow held a ghost and every grass blade that blew in the soft breeze drew her attention. They made a circle around the house, checking all the nooks and crannies, and finding everything secure. Whoever the girl was, she had been there alone.

Back where they started, at the northeastern corner of the house, Aubrey veered off towards the edge of the yard, where the once-manicured lawn turned abruptly into woods; heading directly north for a little less than 200 meters would land her in the Simmons' back yard. They moved slowly through the woods with the light of dawn on the gray trees gave everything a monochromatic look. Each new section of woods looked exactly like the last. The damp air and the dew covering the forest floor made movement quiet and limited the crunch of the leaves she stepped on. Aside from the occasional panting from Grimm, the woods were silent. Finally, the woods opened up into a clearing. She was at the bottom of a steep hill, over the top of which she could just make out the roofline of the Simmons' house. To her left was a shallow gully with a stream passing through it. Making her way through the woods, she felt that it was less and less likely that she would find anyone in the house.

Still... She wanted to know that the Simmons had made it out. The thought of them in safety gave her a bit of hope, a positive feeling. The young soldier and Grimm made their way up the hill as more of the house came into view and they gained elevation. Unsure who— or what— might be in or around the house, Aubrey approached with caution, using trees as cover and concealment as she got closer to the home. Between stands of trees, she ran at a half crouch, keeping her grey eyes on the shadows.

The brunette moved to the back of the house, Grimm following at a trot. She kept her rifle trained on the windows, in case a lookout spotted them. The Aimpoint sight mounted on her M4 was dialed low so the red dot was not overpowering in the dim morning light. At the back of the house, she moved left towards a set of wooden stairs leading to a large back deck, lifted up on stilts. The stairs creaked treacherously as Aubrey made her way up to the deck. She kept her eyes locked on the dark patio doors. They were sliding glass with no curtain covering them making it easier for anyone inside shrouded in the darkness able to see her long before she could see them. She moved quickly across the fatal funnel and posted on the left side of the sliding glass doors where she could see inside. The doors led into the living room, which appeared mostly undisturbed except for a body of a young girl lying on the couch. The odd angle and missing portion of her abdomen was enough recognition for her to see the girl was dead.

Her breakfast threatened to rise once again but she pushed the feeling down and focused inside to see if there could be any threats. Through the shadows, she could make out morning light seeping through the open front door. Deciding to explore further, she opened the glass door and stepped in with her M4 at a low ready.

Grimm walked carefully over the blanket that Aubrey covered the girl with before she led the way through the kitchen to the hallway. Grimm was less interested in this body than he was in the girl lying on their front porch, but Aubrey told him to "leave it" anyway. She wasn't sure whether the Simmon's daughter had been infected prior to being killed but wanted to be safe. She checked the living room, which was clear, and then headed to the kitchen

She took the time to scavenge for clues around the house to see if there were any other members of the family around other then the abandoned daughter but found no sign of life. She was in the process of gearing up again when Grimm suddenly stood, his ears erect. He looked around, then pivoted in the direction of Jefferson Street and let out a low growl. Aubrey froze in place, ceasing all movement and listening hard for whatever it was that had Grimm all perked up. After a moment of hearing nothing out of the ordinary, she quickly clipped her chest rig in place, then slung into her M4. She knew better than to dismiss a warning from Grimm.

Grabbing her Hell pack by a shoulder strap and sprinting as quietly as she could for the stairs, she flew fast into the living room, wishing there was a way to secure the shattered front door. She went down the hall to the back patio door, checked to ensure it was locked, then peered out a nearby window. Beside her Grimm whined and pranced around, sensing Aubrey's tension. She took the moment as the window to pull her pack on and tighten up the straps while she watched for another minute, not seeing anything.

"What did you hear?" Aubrey broke away from the window and quickly ascended the stairs to the second level. She turned left, away from the master bedroom and into the Simmons daughter's bedroom. Everything was pink and flowers and princesses. If Aubrey had a moment to let her heart break, she was sure it would have. The blinds were open, revealing an elevated vantage point of Jefferson Street.

Now she heard something. An engine? Definitely the sound of someone yelling... or screaming. It sounded like a man... make that men. Like cat-calls. And the engine was definitely there. A revving engine, something powerful, like a V8. The view of Jefferson Street was narrow. Between the Simmons' house and Aubrey's teams safe-house was a thick strand of forest that blocked any view of the road to the south and Aubrey simply could not get a decent angle on the road to the north, though she knew there were no trees blocking it in that direction.

Coming from the south, on Jefferson Street, Aubrey could see a red vehicle flashing through the trees, and then finally come into view. It was a red pickup truck, a big dually with large off-road tires. In the back were two men armed with long guns, though she couldn't tell whether they were rifles or shotguns. Aubrey couldn't see through the windows of the vehicle and couldn't tell how many more were inside. The pickup truck slowed. The men appeared to be looking for something. She felt her heart pounding her entire body as she watched the scene unfold. The men in the back began pointing wildly towards the wood line as the pickup truck revved and lurched forward, lumbering off the road, causing one of the men in the bed to nearly fall out. Aubrey looked into the southern wood line and shortly after, bursting out of the trees were two figures, a man and a boy.

Aubrey swore and pressed herself against the pink bedroom wall, keeping an eye on the two figures running. They were running in the distinct way that a rabbit runs from a pack of hounds.

She leaned forward and saw the pickup truck skidding to a stop, kicking up dirt and grass. They were about a 100 yards from the two running figures. The doors to the pickup truck opened and the two men in the back hopped out. Three more men exited the vehicle, all armed with what appeared to be shotguns and hunting rifles. The man and boy had been making for the house, but knew they wouldn't make it. They had stopped running and the man stood, chest out, facing the five armed men from the pickup. The boy, barely in his teens, huddled behind the man who Aubrey presumed was his father. The armed men slowed their walk to a strut and began talking loudly and laughing. Taunting. They fanned out as if preparing to flank the man and his boy.

She couldn't make out the details of the conversation but heard the words "fuck" and "pretty little boy" and that was enough.

"Grimm, come." Aubrey bolted out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and out the back door and Grimm followed her eagerly. She told Grimm to stay a few feet back, then took the southwest corner of the house and peered around the brick and mortar base. Beyond the overgrown grass, she could see the father still shielding his son, but sidestepping towards the house. The man appeared to be fumbling in his pocket for something and finally produced what looked like a small, silver revolver. "Don't..." Aubrey whispered, fishing through a pocket in her chest rig and retrieving a 3x magnifier that she quickly attached to her M4, directly behind her scope.

The man pointed the revolver at the approaching gunmen and yelled. "Get the fuck back! I will shoot you!"

One of the men from the pickup spoke, presumably the leader. "If there were any bullets in that thing, you would have shot us already."

Aubrey found the man's cold logic bore the ring of truth. She figured the revolver was empty, carried for show, or possibly in the hopes of eventually finding ammunition for it.

The leader raised a hunting rifle and pointed it at the man. "And we don't want you anyway."

The dark man's shoulder snapped back, and a red mist spewed out. He toppled backward as the boy reached out for his father, then withdrew his hand and turned in Aubrey's direction, running at full sprint. Close behind the boy, the five men all started laughing and jogging after him. Aubrey had very little time to work. As the boy cleared the corner, Aubrey grabbed him up, lightening quick, and clamped a hand over his mouth before he could scream. She pulled the boy in close— he could not have weighed more than 100 pounds— and whispered harshly in his ear. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm here to help you." That was all she had time for.

The boy went limp, and Aubrey hauled him up, wondering if he'd fainted. Holding him with one arm, she sprinted for the trees with everything she had. Through her training in Security Forces she had trained her body to distribute weight over her shoulder despite her tiny 5' 3" size. It was always a struggle but it was possible.

Thinking of the approaching gunmen, their best bet was to be at the bottom of that hill before the men from the pickup cleared the corner. The horizon of the hill would hide them and the attackers would naturally assume the boy had gone into the house and would waste time searching it while Aubrey found them a better spot to hide. Her lungs heaving and legs burning, she made it to the hill and let her downward momentum take over. Grimm ran beside his master, looking up curiously at the boy. She listened past the pounding of her own heart in her ears for a surprised yell or anything that would tell her she had been discovered.

Gratefully she made it to the bottom of the hill, but didn't stop and instead made for the shallow gully and the stream. If she hit the stream she could use that like a highway and take the boy to a point of relative safety, though she kept thinking about the fat man that had shot this boy's father.

Reestablish law and order.

Another mission objective.

She remembered the sociology professor that had taught the Coordinators about different theories of how the world would be after a social collapse. "Swift and brutal justice will be the only way to break through the chaos. You will have to strike terror into not only those that have done wrong, but are even thinking of doing wrong. You have to be the boogeyman they check for underneath their beds. What I'm talking about isn't arrest and trial by jury. Those techniques are only applicable in a civilized world. I am talking about merciless execution. Putting a bullet in the back of someone's head for something you'd receive a citation for nowadays. I hope you are all ready to do this, because in the post-collapse world, anything less is weakness."

_Fine by me, Professor Haywire._

Aubrey made it to the creek bed and knelt down on her knees. She stood the boy up, who looked a little dazed, and shook him.

"Hey! Wake up, Kid!" The kid looked at her, still confused. "You understand me? You speak English?"

The kid nodded. "Okay, come on. We have to run a little farther." Aubrey grabbed the kid by the hand while Grimm stuck his wet nose in the kid's face to see what smells Aubrey had been keeping from him. She swatted his nose away. "Leave it, Grimm. Come on."

Aubrey ran hunched over to keep her upper body under the edge of the gully, though it was more out of habit then necessity, and out of sight. They ran for perhaps another 100 yards, until she could not see the house any more. Luck was on her side as she found a fallen tree just over the top of the gully with the root system created a natural cave of dirt. Perfect to hide the boy.

Aubrey rolled over the side of the gully, then hauled the boy up. Grimm followed with a swift jump and sniffed around the area. The boy was out of breath and she couldn't blame him as she slung the Hell pack off and set it on the ground in the little dirt cave. She patted the top of the bag. "Come here, Kid. Sit down."

The boy shuffled over, obviously scared. Either the water from the stream had splashed up on him or he had wet his pants Aubrey didn't blame him if he had. She'd seen grown men piss their pants in less harrowing situations overseas. When the boy had sat down on the pack, Aubrey knelt on her knees again, so they were at eye level. She checked the boy over to make sure he wasn't wounded anywhere. "What's your name, Buddy?"

"Duane," he said between breaths.

"Okay, Duane." Aubrey finished checking him over. No apparent injuries. "Are you thirsty?"

Duane nodded. "Here..." Aubrey motioned for him to stand, which he did. She fished out a couple of water bottles, giving one to Duane and keeping the other. She uncapped it, drank two long gulps, then splashed some of it on her face before she noticed the kids eyes on her M4 slung around her shoulder. Duane seemed nervous about the weapon.

"How old are you, Duane?" Aubrey checked the weapon to make sure a round was loaded.

"I'm almost 13." He seemed to do a few calculations in his head. "Next month."

"Really?" Aubrey smiled and hoped it was convincing. "I thought you were 16. You look pretty old."

Duane smiled weakly.

"Listen, buddy. As far as I'm concerned, you handled yourself like a man back there." She put a hand on the kid's shoulder and squeezed. "You're a man in my book…. Was that your dad back there?" she had to confirm her suspicions.

Tears filled his eyes and he bit his lip but a sob still managed to escape.

"What was his name?"

"M-Morgan…" he made an effort to stay quiet.

Aubrey leaned forward and gave the kid a warm hug and patted his back. It was not the time to let her heart break yet. There were still hostiles looking for them. "Shhh… It doesn't seem like it now but you are safe."

Duane nodded by way of acknowledgement as she pulled away and looked at him, then took a long gulp from his bottle of water. Aubrey held a pistol towards him that she fished from her thigh holster. "Duane, have you ever used one of these?"

He stared at it. Eventually he shook his head. "Okay. Listen really closely. You have to pay attention." He looked from the pistol to Aubrey. "I'm going to put this on the ground right next to you. This is not a toy and you do not play with it. In fact, I don't even want you to touch it. The only time it's okay for you to touch it, is if you see one of those guys that was chasing you, okay? Then all I want you to do is pick it up, hold it just like this, point it at them, and I want you to pull the trigger three times." Aubrey held up three fingers. "Three times, Duane. If he's not down after that, pull the trigger three more times. Okay? Did you get all of that?"

"Don't touch it." Duane nodded. "If I see a bad guy, shoot him three times. If he doesn't die, shoot him three more times." Aubrey smiled. Kids grow up fast these days. Perhaps even faster during social collapse.

"That's right." She set the pistol down. "You ever play Call of Duty?"

"Yeah."

She nodded. "It's just like in Call of Duty. Just remember that."

"Just like in Call of Duty." The kid looked briefly terrified. "Okay."

Aubrey stood up and patted her leg. "Grimm! Come!" To Duane she said, "You like dogs?"

"Sure," Duane nodded.

"This is Grimm. He's gonna help keep you safe." Aubrey rubbed Grimm behind the ears, then pulled him towards Duane. "Let him smell you, Duane."

The kid offered his hand for Grimm to smell and lick. She snapped her fingers to get Grimm's attention, then pointed to the ground at Duane's feet. "Grimm, guard it, boy. Guard it!" Grimm sat down in front of Duane.

The kid was already small for his age, but next to the big dog he looked shrunken. "Alright. I gotta go back up there for a little bit. No matter what you hear, don't move from this spot. Stay right here with Grimm until I get back."

Duane nodded and Aubrey turned to leave. "Misses..." Aubrey turned and looked at him. "Are you gonna kill those men?"

No need for baby-talk. Aubrey nodded. "Yes."

Duane just looked at her, but didn't respond. Aubrey turned and dipped back into the gully and was gone.

* * *

Nearly ten minutes had elapsed since they shot Morgan. Aubrey's mind was hot and cold. She was a pressure cooker, building heat each time she replayed the image of Duane's father and the bloody cloud exploding out of his back. Duane's eyes, trying to make sense of it all. The men's faces as they laughed. But through the anger her hands were still, her heart steady, and her mind a blank slate. She had no words, only images of death. With no remorse, she was going to kill everyone.

The Airman crept quietly but speedily through the creek bed, then up over the lip and into the lower part of the Simmons' backyard. She took cover behind a tree with a thick trunk and listened for a moment. Over the background noise of birds and insects, Aubrey could hear voices and what sounded like moving furniture. They were ripping the house apart looking for Duane.

Silently, she darted from her point of cover, diagonally across the southwestern corner of the property and back into the wood line of the forest between her safe-house and the Simmons'. Then she stalked, low to the ground, just inside the shadows of the trees, moving parallel to the wood line, towards the house. With each step she carefully avoided twigs and dry patches of leaves. Her feet rolled slowly heel-to-toe, her movements noticeable only to her own attuned ears. To anyone else, they made no more sound than the movements of a cat. She stopped and knelt to the ground, keeping everything slow and deliberate now that she was in view of the house. Quick movements drew the eyes. She smelled cigarette smoke. From her perch about 50 yards out from the house, Aubrey spotted the smoker.

He stood on the back deck with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, looking out into the woods while he enjoyed his smoke. Cigarettes were a sign that the enemy felt safe, relaxed, and in control. She had the advantage. She already knew how many men there were. With one on the deck, four more remained inside. Including Fat Boy, the man that had shot Duane's dad. From where Aubrey sat inside the woods, she could just barely make out the bed of the red pickup truck. She only had to slither a few more yards through the brush to get an angle on the truck that allowed her to see inside. One of the occupants had left a back door open, and the way the truck was parked, it provided Aubrey with a perfect view of the inside.

There was no one inside the truck. Aubrey thanked God for the first stroke of luck all day. A man in a red hat joined Smoker on the deck and they started conversing. The conversation was lighthearted, and included much backslapping and laughing. These boys were raucous and it made Aubrey think of drunken rednecks. They stood around grab-assing while their buddies tried to find a 13-year-old boy, while that boy's father lay dead in the dirt. Aubrey wanted to pull Red Hat into the shadows and slide her knife deep into his guts, working it around until she hit the heart and lungs. She wanted to hold her hand over Red Hat's mouth and watch as the life fled from his eyes. She wanted to know that the last image Red Hat would ever see would be Aubrey's smiling face. That would be satisfying in the moment, but had little chance of success.

A half-dozen different plans ran through Aubrey's mind. But sometimes the best plan was no plan at all. What Aubrey had was initiative. She knew that she could take out both Red Hat and Smoker before they had a chance to react. That left Fat Boy and two others inside the house. The only question remaining was, will they fight or flee? Aubrey felt confident they would die either way.

She settled down into a prone position, most of her body hidden behind a thick tree, just her head and rifle visible, though it was difficult for someone in the bright sunshine to see inside the shaded woods. They probably wouldn't see her, even if she was standing up and wearing hunter orange. She took a few deep breaths and pulled the trigger on the exhale. She took out Smoker first with a single shot to the temple. Red Hat watched his buddy fall over, his own face splattered with brains, blood, and skull fragments. His mouth opened in terror, but he never had a chance to yell. Aubrey put two in his chest and tried for The Mozambique, but the target was already falling back and the third shot went a few inches high. She eased back into a kneeling position and waited as there was shouting from inside the house.

"Kenny? What the fuck was that?"

Aubrey waited for them to find out.

"Fuck! JC, they're both dead!"

"What?"

"I think someone shot 'em!"

"Get back!"

The rest of it was muffled, as the remaining three men retreated into the house. They would either try to peer out the windows and find Aubrey— which would cost them their lives —or they would make a run for the pickup truck and try to escape.

The sound of the front door slamming and footsteps across the front porch answered Aubrey's question. _Slow is smooth, smooth is fast_. Moving with controlled urgency, Aubrey pushed the barrel of her M203 grenade launcher forward, then extracted a 40mm grenade which resembled a giant bullet, shoved it into the barrel, and locked the barrel back into place. She elevated the weapon and pulled the trigger on the launcher. The grenade flew out with a heavy thump but she was worried that her timing might have been off, however it was spot-on. Just as the three men came into view, sprinting for the pickup truck and closing at about 30 feet, the 40mm grenade arced out of the sky and the cab of the pickup went up in a white flash and a billow of smoke. All three men lifted their hands to shield their faces and fell flat on their backs.

Aubrey came out of the wood-line with her M4 leveled and firing. The first man tried to get up and grab his gun, so she put two in him, one ripping into his shoulder and the other punching a neat hole in his neck. The man fell back, choking on his own blood. Fat Boy and a man in a plaid shirt were still sitting on the ground and both threw their rifles away and held up their hands. Aubrey put one in Plaid's chest at about 15 feet out. The man grabbed his chest and started rolling around, wheezing and letting out pathetic sounds. What right did he have to plead for mercy or scream in pain?

The man they'd killed only a short time ago had died defending his son and he'd done it in silence.

Fat Boy stared at Plaid with his mouth hanging open. He was paralyzed with shock. He looked at Aubrey and snapped back into the moment. If she had been in his position she would have known that it was over anyway and made a break for her rifle so that she would go out swinging. But Fat Boy was just a fat boy, just an out of shape hillbilly with a taste for teenage boys. His heart wasn't made of tough stuff and his mind had never been combat hardened. He only knew fear— how to induce it, and how to feel it.

Aubrey was standing now within a few feet of both men. Plaid continued to moan loudly and roll on the ground. She felt that two men to dig a grave was one too many. Still holding Fat Boy's gaze, Aubrey finished Plaid off with two more rounds. She didn't watch where they hit, but Plaid was silent after that.

"Please don't fucking kill me! Please!" the fat man started crying.

Aubrey shook her head, her once neat bun now with loose bangs falling in her face. "Stop crying."

Fat Boy whimpered and sobbed.

"Seriously. Stop crying." Aubrey kicked his legs. "Get up. Come on." Fat Boy stumbled to his feet, hunched over and cowering. He'd been so bold and brash just a short time ago. Now he was reduced to groveling. Aubrey motioned the man forward, which the man complied with, hesitantly, like a beaten dog. As he got within arms reach, Aubrey punched him in the throat, then planted her other fist deep in the man's jiggling gut, doubling him over.

The man fell sideways onto the ground, hacking and coughing. Aubrey wanted to do more, but she also wanted the man alive a little longer. "Relax and breathe. You're not injured, you're just hurt. Give it a minute."

Fat Boy rolled onto his hands and knees and wheezed for a few moments before regaining his wind.

"Up." Aubrey poked him in the back of the neck with the barrel of her M4. "You have some work to do."

* * *

Fat Boy dug like his life depended on it. Which it did. Aubrey was going to kill him anyway, but she let Fat Boy believe that there was hope. She told the man that if he looked like he was taking his time with the digging, or being disrespectful towards the body of Morgan, that she was going to gut shoot him and leave him to die, then finish the digging herself. Fat Boy had four dead friends that bore witness to the fact that Aubrey was willing and able to carry out that level of violence. It took the man about a half hour to dig a grave that Aubrey felt was of suitable depth to bury Duane's father in. She then escorted Fat Boy at gunpoint to collect the body and carry it to the grave. Before taking the body, Aubrey searched it and saw the man was wearing a gold watch and took it off his wrist for Duane.

Fat Boy struggled at first, then finally was able to pick the body up and carry it over his shoulder. After Morgan had been laid to rest, Aubrey ordered Fat Boy to remove the shoelaces on his right boot. Fat Boy complied and provided her with a two-foot length of cordage which she used to bind Fat Boy's hands behind his back. At gunpoint, the Airman marched Fat Boy down the hill and into the woods.

"Where are you taking me?"

Aubrey felt no reason to lie to the man any longer. "To the boy whose father you killed. The boy that you were gonna rape."

Fat Boy stopped in his tracks and looked at the short brunette, terrified. "Why you doin' that?"

"Because I'm going to let him kill you if he wants to."

Fat Boy's eyes erupted in tears again. "No! Please, Miss!" he got down on his knees. "I wasn't gonna rape him! Why you gonna let him kill me over nothing? I ain't done nothing wrong!"

Aubrey looked at the man with indifference. She knew if she didn't keep her guard up then this man would no sooner try to turn the tables on her. Even with herself all decked out in her gear and uniform, she still looked like the young woman she was. "You've done a lot wrong."

Fat Boy's mind scrambled for something, anything to argue his case. Aubrey cut him off before he could continue arguing. "You murdered a man today. You know it and I know it. And I watched you do it with a smile on your face, which makes me think, maybe this isn't the first time you've done it. So for the boy's father and anyone else you've murdered, I would dearly like to put a bullet in your brain. But I'm going to let the boy decide what to do with you. So you can either keep walking and have a chance— however slim— of the boy sparing your life, or you can stop right here and I will gladly do the job myself." Fat Boy looked Aubrey in the eye and tried to match her cold determination, but couldn't muster the stones and looked down at his feet.

Then he turned and continued walking in the creek bed. It was only a short distance before Aubrey saw the top of the root system where Duane and Grimm were hiding. She pushed Fat Boy down to his knees and looked up over the top of the gully.

"Duane?"

Duane's head poked up as well as Grimm's. Aubrey motioned with her head for Duane to come over. The boy moved to her, all the while nervously peeling the bark from a small twig that he clutched in his hands.

Aubrey felt conflicted about what she was going to ask the kid, but it somehow felt more just than simply killing the man after he'd finished digging the grave. It was Duane's father the man killed. It should be Duane's decision what happens to him. As Duane made his way over, Aubrey knelt down and whispered quietly in Fat Boy's ear, "Don't say a word. I promise you'll regret it."

Duane slid down into the gully, his khaki pants now smudged with mud. He stood a safe distance away and stared at Fat Boy where he knelt. His expression was unreadable to Aubrey, and again she second-guessed her decision to bring the man to Duane. But it was a fucked up world and this day would always be a dark blotch in this young man's mind. Sometimes revenge heals, sometimes it makes things hurt worse. It wasn't for Aubrey to decide how Duane dealt with this.

Calmly she stepped between Duane and Fat Boy, but angled herself so that Fat Boy was still in her field of vision. She put her hand on Duane's shoulder and spoke in low tones. "You know who that is, right?"

Duane's eyes drifted to Fat Boy and he nodded after a moment.

"And you know what he did?"

"He killed my dad."

"Yes. Whatever you decide to do with him, he'll deserve it." Aubrey dipped her head down to the kid's level so that their eyes made contact. Her grey eyes softened and she looked to Duane sadly yet reassuringly. "Look at me, buddy. You know the world is very different than it was a little while ago. You know how things have changed. We don't have police and court rooms to take care of people like him anymore, so now we have to do it ourselves. And it's ugly, and sometimes it hurts, but it has to be done. You understand me?"

Duane nodded slowly, looking at the crying man on his knees. His chocolate eyes were cold, which put a chill down the back of Aubrey's neck. He didn't look so small now. "Yeah, I understand."

"It was you that he hurt, so it's up to you what you do with him, okay?"

Duane's jaw muscles bunched, his lips becoming a tight line. His was a face built for smiling, not for scowling, and when the expression came on his face, it was disconcerting. "Can I borrow your gun?"

The way he said it was as if he was asking Aubrey to loan him a dollar. But she didn't think about it too long. She shook her head. "I'll do it. You just decide."

"Okay..." Duane seemed partially relieved. He walked forward and looked at Fat Boy, who knew he was about to die and was weeping uncontrollably now. The man had not an ounce of courage to stay his tears at least for the moment of his death. Instead he blabbered on, snot running down his upper lip and bubbling with each mumbled syllable. The young man looked at Fat Boy for a very long time, then leaned in close and whispered to the man something that Aubrey could not hear, then he turned and walked back to the soldier.

"Let him go," he said calmly.

Aubrey watched him climb the side of the gully and sit back down with Grimm who stuck his nose into Duane's neck and licked him happily. Looking back at Fat Boy, Aubrey saw the man's eyes were heavy-lidded and his mouth hung agape. He looked numb.

She slid her pistol back into its place and walked over to him as she tapped him on the shoulder, which did not seem to break into his daze.

"Come on." The man on the ground turned his head slowly, visibly trembling and looked up at Aubrey. "Are you really going to let me go?"

She shrugged. "The kid doesn't want to kill you."

Fat Boy stumbled to his feet, eager to be released. "I swear I won't come back!"

"Mm-hm." Aubrey smiled humorlessly. "Start walking."

They walked in silence back through the streambed, Fat Boy stumbling along with his hands still tied behind his back, and Aubrey following. They reached the back edge of the Simmons' property and Aubrey instructed Fat Boy to stop. The man stopped then looked back toward the younger woman over his shoulder.

Fat Boy took a shaky breath. "I promise. You'll never see me again."

Aubrey nodded and withdrew her knife from its sheath on her chest rig. "I know."

Then she reached around and gripped Fat Boy by the forehead, applying rearward pressure, and inserted the knife into the base of his skull, just above vertebrae C1, severing his spinal column. Fat Boy's body became a 250-pound sack of concrete and immediately collapsed. Aubrey wiped the blade off on the man's pants, then slid it back into its sheath and walked back towards Duane and Grimm, leaving Fat Boy where he fell.

**Thank you to my two reviewers! **

**Next time will pick up more as we see Daryl and the group find the now trio! Stay tuned! **


	4. Chapter 3

**What an amazing group of readers! I'm so grateful everyone is here! Well I shall happily continue with our little adventure here!**

**ONE MORE THING! If you don't want to read this "filler" chapter and think that I have unnecessary action then please wait until next chapter for the plot to be moving along. In a way this is very important but it doesn't mean you won't be able to figure out what happens later if you didn't read it. :) **

**No own-y Remaining or Walking Dead**

**Rated M for a reason :) **

Chapter 3

Aubrey found Duane sitting on her Hell pack with his arms wrapped around his knees, and his head hanging down. As she got closer, Aubrey realized the kid was crying. She stopped where she was, wondering if she should give him a minute but then swore under her breath, directing her anger at herself. She should not have brought Fat Boy down there, should not have put that decision on Duane. That was too much for a 13-year-old to handle. Aside from all of that, the kid was still processing the death of his father. Once the adrenaline subsides, the mind has a chance to start replaying what has happened, and that's when the emotions start to break through.

She walked quietly up to Duane, still edgy after what had transpired. Duane jumped when he heard a twig snap and looked up to find Audrey kneeling down beside him. Duane wiped his eyes quickly, then set his chin on his arms and regarded the forest floor. Aubrey took a long, deep breath and stared at the ground along with him.

"You made a good choice, Duane. Don't ever feel bad about showing someone mercy."

"I don't," Duane mumbled, his voice thick with tears. They sat in the quiet of the forest for a long moment. Aubrey listened to the sounds of the forest, hearing the occasional small branch falling, and the incessant chatter of birds, lost in conversations shouted from one end of the woods to the other.

Finally, she spoke.

"Are you hurt? Normally after adrenaline leaves your body you feel the ache."

"No, I'm fine." Duane gave Aubrey a sidelong glance. "What's your name?"

"Aubrey Thomson," she extended her hand with a crooked forced smile, which Duane shook once. "I'm a captain with the US Air Force."

"The Air Force?" Duane looked incredulous. "I thought the military was gone."

Aubrey suddenly felt like the breath had been knocked out of her. She knew the government would not be at work in the chaos of a post-collapse world, but hearing it come from a kid's mouth as common knowledge that there was no US Military still hit her hard. She didn't let the effects show and smiled with a confidence she didn't feel.

"Oh, we're not gone. We're just working a little more quietly than normal."

"Where are all your guys? Don't you guys work in teams?" Duane looked behind Aubrey as though perhaps there were others he had missed.

"Not me kiddo. I'm trained to work alone," She lied easily. She didn't want to let the kid doubt her or the situation he just found himself in.

Duane didn't seem to notice and only nodded. "You did just kill a bunch of guys all by yourself."

Aubrey wasn't sure what to say. Duane continued. "Is my dad still up there?"

Sighing, she placed the butt of her M4 on the ground and leaned on it. "Yeah, but he's buried now, Duane."

"You mean I can't see him?" Duane's lip tensed as he tried to hold back more tears. Aubrey thought about telling the boy that he didn't want to see his father like that, considered telling him that it wasn't his father, it was just a body, but it all seemed so trite, so she didn't say anything at all. She just shook her head so the boy knew that he couldn't see his father. She reached into the cargo pocket of her combat pants and withdrew the gold watch she'd removed from Morgan before burying him. She looked at the watch-face, wiped a smudge of dirt off with her thumb, then extended it towards Duane.

"Here."

Duane took the watch and looked at it, unable to hold the tears back. "I'm sorry you can't see him."

Duane nodded and held the watch in a tight grip as he cried again. Aubrey wasn't accustomed to dealing with people in emotional crisis aftermath, let alone teenagers. She sat down on the ground and let Duane cry for a moment longer. She had become acutely aware of the amount of time they had spent outdoors and the amount of noise and fire and smoke she had created during the firefight. She wasn't sure what kind of attention it would bring, but she was sure she wanted to be inside when it came. She still had a viable safe house, and she intended to use it.

As if to restate what Aubrey was thinking, somewhere in the woods, a very human voice screamed out with very inhuman anger. Aubrey immediately remembered the crazed girl from under her front steps and the sound she'd made when she'd seen her. It was the same, insane, rage-filled screech. And it wasn't too far away.

Aubrey shouldered her rifle and grey eyes scanned the woods. "Come on, buddy... we should get indoors."

* * *

The trio moved through the woods without speaking. Duane had put away his grief for the moment with his eyes clear and focused. He scanned from right to left in a constant arc, as cautious as any good soldier on patrol. At first, Aubrey was impressed by this, wondering how Duane had learned to scan and move so quietly through the woods. Then she realized that, though she herself was new to this world, it was the harsh reality that Duane had lived the past few months in it. Necessity and survival were brutal tutors, and they only gave pass or fail. The screeching from the woods began to sound less like rage to Aubrey, and more like a moaning. The whole scenario was like the howl of a wolf on the scent of game. The similarity made her pick up the pace a bit— they were still a hundred yards from the house. After a few minutes, Aubrey could swear she heard an answer to the screeching, coming from the opposite sides of the woods.

Boxing them in.

Aubrey reached behind her and grabbed Duane by the arm, pulling him closer as they walked. She spoke in a low voice. "You ever hear that before?"

Duane nodded vigorously. "They heard the shooting."

"Are they always attracted to loud noises?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever seen them... team up?"

"Not in the beginning, but lately me and dad have seen them in groups."

"How big?"

Duane shrugged. "Ten? Twenty? Once we saw about fifty of them."

"Why aren't they killing each other?"

"They do kill each other." Duane scanned the woods again. Then spoke more quietly. "Dad says they're like wild dogs— sometimes they get along, other times they fight and kill each other, but they're never friendly towards us. It started out as them being just mindless people eating us only… but now they seem to be getting smarter like dogs and getting more control of their bodies… enough to run and stuff… that's what my dad would say."

Aubrey didn't ask any more questions and Duane didn't elaborate any further. They came to the tree line of Aubrey's yard, but didn't exit the woods. She stood for a moment and took a good look around to make sure there wasn't anyone around, normal or infected. The noon sun was hot and sticky and even the birds were silent, unwilling to spend energy making their usual racket in this heat.

Satisfied that it was clear, Aubrey wiped sweat from her eyebrows and stepped out into the open, hunched over and moving quickly to limit her time exposed. She made straight for the front porch, Duane following with Grimm bringing up the rear. Aubrey kept an eye on the body of the dead girl lying on the front porch as she opened her front door and motioned Duane and Grimm to go inside.

Duane stared sideways at the body as he moved slowly past it, hypnotized by death. Aubrey wondered how much of it the kid had seen in the past month, how indelibly screwed up he would be for the rest of his life, or whether he was constructed of the type of soul that shrugs things off and keeps moving on. Once the kid and Grimm were inside the house, Aubrey slipped in behind them and closed and bolted the door. The air conditioning was glorious, and felt almost arctic on her sweat-soaked body. She'd done her time in the brutal heat, and even in places with high humidity, but there was something uniquely cloying and irritating about a Georgia summer. Of course, the presence of central air made all of that better.

Duane sounded astonished when he spoke. "Is this your house? You have air conditioning?"

"Yeah, it's mine. Feels good, doesn't it?"

Duane immediately sat on Aubrey's couch and leaned back with his arms out. "How do you have air conditioning? I thought nobody had electricity anymore."

Aubrey dropped her Hell pack and fished out two more bottles of water. "It's running on solar power and battery cells. We have lights, air conditioning, I even have a computer and TV downstairs." Aubrey passed one of the bottles to Duane. "We'll go down into my bunker in a minute, but I need to ask you some questions."

Aubrey sat herself down on a lounge chair across from the couch. Normally, sweaty, dirty clothes would not be allowed in her team's living room, but she supposed it really didn't matter now. She took a long drink from her own water bottle, then looked at Duane. Aubrey leaned forward a bit. "Do you know what happened to everyone?"

"Not really. Dad says someone attacked America with a plague and it was making people crazy. Said it was like rabies and made people attack each other. Mom got sick and dad told me to hide in the basement. After that I didn't see Mom again until she was outside the house and already turned… This was about a year and a half ago." Duane paused for a long moment, staring at the tiny ripples in his bottle of water.

"A year and a half? That long ago?" Aubrey could not believe how much America had changed in such a short time since she was here on her home front. In the span of a month, it seemed that she had lost everyone she knew and loved since the course of this whole mission starting.

"When your mom was gone, did you guys stay in the house or did you move out?"

"No, we stayed for another two weeks. We met a man named Rick… He was a sheriff and we were going to meet with him in Atlanta… But before all that there were these buses that came, and there were soldiers inside, and they said they were taking us to someplace safe. They had nurses that were taking our temperatures before we could get on the bus. Everyone had to wear masks. One of the guys wasn't allowed to get on after they took his temperature and he started yelling and shouting, then these two soldiers with gas masks came up and grabbed him and carried him into this big tent and he got really quiet. I think they gave him a shot, like the kind you give a dog when you have to 'put it down.'" Though the story obviously came with some pain, Aubrey needed to hear more about the camps and why Duane and his father were not there, and were on the road.

"So did you go to the camp?"

Duane shook his head. "We were in line, but then there was a lot of shooting, and some helicopters came in. I think there was a big crowd of walkers coming for us, and the buses left without us. Dad and I only had time to grab a few things out of our luggage and then some guy let us get in the back of his pickup truck and drive with them."

"Was it the guys from earlier today?"

"No. Those are different guys. This was... 7 months ago?" Duane motioned with his hand to display his uncertainty about the time frame. "We drove out into the country where this family had a cabin. They were really nice to drive us, and they even gave us some water, but they told us that they didn't have enough supplies to take care of us, and that we should start heading toward the FEMA camp in Sanford. It was supposed to be safe, no one there was sick."

"Is that where you guys were headed?"

"Yeah. We've been on the road for weeks. Last night, we came up on the guys in the red pickup truck. They made us take off our backpacks and searched them. Dad asked them to leave us some water. They said they would leave us water if he would give me to them. Dad said, 'Fuck you, sons of bitches,' and then grabbed me and took off running. We hid in the woods all night long. They were searching for us too, and they found us, so we started running again. We came to this house first, but you weren't home when we knocked, so we ran through the woods and came to the other house. And that's when they caught us." Duane took a tentative sip from his water. "You were there. You saw what happened."

Aubrey nodded. "I saw."

There was a long silence as Aubrey tried to think of other questions she had. Duane broke the silence first.

"Why didn't you shoot them before they shot my dad?" Duane looked directly at Aubrey when he asked it and she couldn't tell what the kid was thinking about her. It was the same, expressionless gaze he'd given Fat Boy when deciding whether to kill him or not. Aubrey felt defenseless for a moment as she contemplated her answer.

"Duane..." Aubrey thought for a bit longer. "You're going to find that there are situations in this world where you can't do what you want to do. If there was a way to bring you and your dad out of that alive, I would have done it. But if there was a way to do that, I'm not sure what it was. If I had started shooting when I realized they were bad guys, you and your dad would have both died, and probably me too. I had to wait, to make sure I had an advantage, and my advantage came too late. I'm sorry, Duane. I wanted to save both of you. But sometimes you just can't do what you want."

Duane continued to stare at Aubrey, unspeaking, with no obvious emotion on his face. Finally, after several long and awkward moments of Aubrey staring at the floor, Duane spoke.

"When we were on the road, we saw this house, out in the distance. Dad stopped walking because he said he heard someone yelling. I tried to look around, but I couldn't see anything but a house, way in the distance, across this huge open field. I used a pair of binoculars to look, and I could see three people on the roof. They were looking at me and Dad with binoculars too, and they were waving a white towel at us and shouting. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I could tell they were asking for help. I told my Dad what I was seeing, and he grabbed the binoculars from me and looked through them. I said to him, 'Dad, we have to go help them!' After a really long time, he gave the binoculars back to me and kept walking down the road, telling me to, 'Come on.'

"I got mad and started yelling at my dad. I couldn't believe he would leave those people up on the roof. I told him, 'How can we expect others to help us if we don't help them?' But he never gave me an answer. He just kept walking. I told him that it wasn't right. I even said I hated him, but I was only trying to get him to stop and listen. When I said that, he turned around and smacked my head, then told me to look through the binoculars again.

I did, and when I looked again I could see almost ten of them, walking around in the yard below. They were in the house, running around, trying to climb the gutters to get at the people on the roof.

"Then my dad took the binoculars away from me again. He said, 'If we try to help them, we will die. And then the people on the roof will die anyway. The only difference will be that we wasted our lives for nothing.' Then he told me, 'Sometimes, the only way to win is to not fight.'

"Then we just kept walking. And those people on the roof, it was a man, a wife, and little girl, they watched us look right at them and then walk away. We couldn't help them, no matter how much we wanted to."

Aubrey chose not to say anything further to defend her actions earlier in the day. She felt that there was an understanding between her and Duane, and that to speak further on the matter would only be scratching at the wound. The decision had been made, and there was no way to change it. Duane recognized that she had made the best decision she was capable of making at the time, and that it was not his place to second guess her.

After a pause, Aubrey said, "How long ago was that?"

Duane thought for a moment. "Two days ago."

Aubrey nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Do you remember where the house was?"

Duane gave the soldier a hard look. "Are you going to go help them?"

The insinuation was obvious. Are you better than my dad? He couldn't save them, but you can? "Buddy, this has nothing to do with your father. He was one man with a revolver and no bullets and he had you to think about. Saving people is my job. That's what I'm here to do. It's what the US Government trained me to do, and I have a lot of guns to do it with. Your dad made the right choice. Going in against ten infected people would have been suicide. But I'm sure if your dad had all the equipment I have, he would have been able to do it, just like I can."

Duane looked down, somewhat sheepish. "It was on this same road. I don't know how far back it was. We saw them just before it got dark. Then we kept walking for maybe another hour, and then we slept in the woods. When we got up the next morning we walked until it was about to get dark again, and that's when we came up on the guys in the red pickup."

Aubrey did some mental calculations. The average person could cover upward of 20 miles in a day in the local terrain. That would put the house with the stranded people anywhere within a 30-40 mile range. Jefferson Street was a long road that changed names several times as it cut through different cities and counties, but Aubrey wasn't sure it was that long. Perhaps they had stopped frequently to rest or to investigate abandoned houses for supplies.

"Did you pass any other survivors?"

"We passed a big two-story house. We couldn't see anyone inside, so Dad and I ran away from the house. We didn't know if there was a reason it was so empty looking."

Just as Aubrey was about to ask another question, three things happened in the same instant: Duane's eyes went wide and his mouth opened in a silent scream; there was a loud bang behind him; and Grimm started barking ferociously and lunged for the window. Aubrey bolted upright and brought her rifle up to her shoulder, looking for the threat. She saw a bloody face pressed against the shatter-proof window, the eyes wide and crazy, the tongue licking obscenely at the glass and leaving a bloody trail wherever it went.

Grimm was at the window snarling and barking, the hair along his spine standing straight up like a Mohawk. Finally Duane found his voice and screamed. Aubrey almost pulled the trigger, but knew it would only weaken the shatter-proof glass. As of right now, no one was getting into the house without monumental effort or explosives. Aubrey stayed her trigger finger and backed away from the window. After emptying his lungs in one giant scream, Duane was silent, plastered against the couch as though he was attempting to meld himself into the fabric. Another bump on the side of the house and a rapid banging on the glass in the kitchen. Aubrey pivoted and looked into the kitchen. The back patio doors, also steel-framed and shatter-proof, were being assaulted by another infected who was beating the glass ferociously.

Grimm didn't notice the new intruder and was still barking at the first.

"Grimm, heel! Come on! Leave it!" Grimm backed a few feet away, but kept barking. Aubrey grabbed Duane by the shirt and hauled him off the couch. "Follow me."

She shoved the kid into the kitchen, which he didn't like since it was towards the other infected against the window. As she was opening the door to the basement, she could swear she heard the one from the kitchen window scream or groan in protest.

She flipped on the basement lights so Duane wouldn't be afraid and pointed down into the basement. "Go."

"No!"

"Duane!" Aubrey shouted. "Get the fuck in the basement!"

Duane turned and went four steps down, then froze and looked back.

"Grimm," Aubrey called over her shoulder, keeping an eye on the infected in the kitchen. The blows were creating little white scratches in the window, but not breaking or cracking it. The big dog came running through the kitchen in a black flash and headed straight to the back patio door, locked onto another target. Aubrey reached out and grabbed his collar.

"No! Go downstairs!" She hauled the dog back, then pushed him onto the basement stairs. The dog looked back, still barking and wagging his tail. Fun, protect, fun.

Aubrey closed the door and went back into the living room. The infected on the front porch went nuts when it saw her and started scratching at the window as hard as it could. She got a better look at the guy and saw he was dressed in slacks and a polo shirt and was wearing golf shoes. It was difficult to tell the age because his skin was so covered in crusted blood and grey, but Aubrey could see the creature was balding and guessed mid-40' s.

She grabbed her Hell pack. _There's no golf course within miles_, she thought. He must have been running around for days.

She opened up the door to the basement and found Grimm right there, ready to get back in the fight, and Duane, halfway down the stairs, crouched in a ball, unwilling to go back upstairs and unwilling to descend any further into the creepy basement.

"Come on, Duane," Aubrey took the stairs slowly. "That's shatter-proof glass, okay? Those guys aren't getting in here for a long time. And if they do, I'll take care of them. You believe me right?"

Duane shook his head. Aubrey felt bad for the kid, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She walked down the stairs and heard Duane and Grimm fall in behind him. She punched in the code for the hatch, heard it click, then turned the wheel and opened it up.

"It's safe down there. No one can get in." Duane peered down the hole hesitantly, saw that it was dark and shook his head. Aubrey knelt down beside him. "Buddy, I know you've been through a lot, but you have got to trust me now. I will never tell you to do something unsafe. You got that? If I tell you to do something, it is because that is your best chance at not getting hurt. You have got to listen to me. I promise you there is nothing bad down there. Me and Grimm go down there all the time."

Duane was still unsure.

"You can't be afraid anymore, buddy. You gotta be brave."

Duane finally budged and swung his legs into the shaft. Aubrey wasn't sure if it was anything she had said, or whether the kid just made up his own mind to go, but was happy that they were moving. After Duane got to the bottom, Aubrey grabbed Grimm around the chest, for the first time becoming annoyed that she hadn't insisted on a more pet-friendly entry to her bunker. She knelt down and hoisted Grimm into the hatch.

The dog scrabbled around, still excited, and the small woman lost her grip. Grimm hit the ground with a yelp as Aubrey swore loudly and stood frozen as she watched Grimm stand up on all fours and walk around. The larger German Shepherd seemed a bit loopy for the first few seconds, but then looked fine. Aubrey cursed the dog under her breath and swung down onto the ladder, closing the hatch behind her.

"Is he okay?" Duane asked with worry lacing his voice.

"He's fine. Just stupid." Aubrey walked with Duane down the cement tunnel, Grimm leading the way eagerly.

"Are you mad at me?" Duane asked, crestfallen.

"No, kid, I'm not mad at you." _Way to go, Aubrey. Kid loses his entire family and you snap at him because he gets a little scared_. "I know it's tough, and you don't really know me, but you have to trust me now, okay? I'm your friend. Friends have to trust each other."

Duane looked at the hatch to Aubrey's bunker. "Alright."

She pushed the hatch open and gestured for Duane to enter. "Welcome home."

"What?" Duane was confused.

Aubrey didn't feel like explaining. "This is where I've been staying the last month or so." Duane looked around, locking on the big screen TV.

"Oh my God! You do have a TV! It's HUGE!"

"Yup." Aubrey was always amazed at the resiliency of the younger generation. They bounced back better than adults, could go from tragedy to triumph seamlessly, and never thought twice about it. It could also be a sign that he was becoming emotionally disconnected. A defense mechanism. Aubrey looked at her watch. 1230 hours. She had almost eight hours of light left and one location of potential survivors.

In this heat, on the top of a roof, they were unlikely to make it much longer without supplies. The survival of the family on the roof was very time sensitive, which meant Aubrey needed to move to their location ASAP. The only problem was that she could not realistically make the trip before it got dark out, and certainly not the trip back. She toyed with the idea of making the trek to their house on foot, eliminating all hostiles, and sleeping in the house with the family, then moving out in the morning. Then came the issue of Duane.

She did not want to take Duane with her and expose the kid to needless danger. She felt confident she could handle the infected in the yard, but she didn't need to be worrying about Duane while she did it. Or Grimm for that matter. They would both have to stay here. And she didn't want to leave Duane and Grimm unattended for too long. Two days would be too much.

She didn't like it because it went against her training, but sometimes you had to improvise and adapt your tactics to the situation.

Aubrey would have to use her truck. That meant a few things. First, she had to get to it, which meant taking out the two unwanted guests attempting to beat their way into the house. Second, it meant she would have to take roads to get there, which meant the possibility of another gang like the men in the red pickup truck. While she'd handled them fairly easily, she had the advantage of surprise and there were only five of them, none armed with anything more potent than a bolt-action rifle. Should she be ambushed by a better-equipped or more numerous group, her chances of survival were greatly decreased.

But the cold facts were that there was a family of three on a roof, likely suffering— if not already dead— from dehydration and heat stroke. Not to mention the complete and utter despair of their situation. She could not imagine the crushing feeling of hopelessness after seeing Duane and his dad, probably the first people they'd seen for a while, and then just watching them walk away.

She had to rescue them.

Out of personal conviction, and because it was her job to do so. As a Coordinator, it was her primary duty, and one she'd sworn to uphold, just as she'd sworn to uphold the country and the Constitution. And the only way to rescue them was by truck. On the positive side, she would be back before nightfall. Aubrey walked over to her closet and called Duane over to join her. The kid was going to be in the house alone. Aubrey was not going to forbid Duane from opening the closet full of weapons and ammo because there was nothing that would make a kid want to play with the shit more than being forbidden to do so.

Instead, she chose the approach of hoping that some knowledge and instruction on these pieces of equipment would alleviate the kid's fascination with them, and hopefully keep him from killing himself. She opened the closet and saw Duane's eyes go wide.

"Wow. You've got a lot of stuff."

Aubrey knelt down and pulled out her 5.56mm ammo can, then extracted the magazine from her M4 and started topping it off.

"These are all tools, Duane. Just like a screwdriver or a hammer. They are here so that I can do my job. And you need to learn about them too, since you're going to be helping me do my job." Aubrey spent the next twenty minutes telling Duane all about the equipment in the closet, and some of the equipment on her person. She answered most of the kid's questions, and did her best to let the kid handle most of it so he wouldn't be sneaking around her back, pulling grenade pins out of curiosity.

After a comprehensive crash course on pistols, rifles, grenades, GPS devices, and how to load a magazine, Aubrey was finished topping off her rifle and pistol and replacing the 40mm grenade she'd used to blow the truck. She closed the door and stood up.

"Now listen to me, Duane." Aubrey waited until she had eye contact. "We're friends, like I said, and friends trust each other. That means I trust you. You remember when I said you were a man in my book?"

He nodded.

"Nothing's different. You are still a man in my book. And men don't take their friend's tools, unless they have permission, or if they really need it. Like in an emergency." Aubrey felt her explaining-things-to-kids ability flagging. "Just don't do anything stupid, okay? Remember, if you pull the pin on one of those grenades, you're going to die. No matter where you throw it in here, the pressure will pop your head open. Got it?"

Duane looked a little apprehensive of the closet now. _Good._

Aubrey stood and double-checked her equipment.

"Where are you going?" Duane seemed worried.

She wondered if abandoning the kid was the best thing right now, but decided she couldn't let this one child affect her decision making when it came to fulfilling her mission. If there were people out there who needed help, she had to rescue them and bring them together. To rescue and rebuild.

"I'm going to go try to help the people on the roof. I should be back in a few hours."

"But what about the people outside?" he almost shouted.

"Duane..." She gave him a warning look and kept her own voice low_. Lead by example_. "I have to try to help those people, because that's my job. I will be fine, just like I'm fine now after helping you. And you let me worry about the two people upstairs." She wasn't as sure as she sounded. If the girl from yesterday had taught her one thing, it was to not underestimate the strength or tenacity of infected individuals. "I'll be fine."

Duane clenched his jaw, not happy about being left alone. "What do you want me to do while you're gone?"

"Here," Aubrey walked over to the remote and flipped the TV on. She was not above bribing the kid into submission. "Play Call of Duty. You better have it beat by the time I come back."

"That's impossible," Duane mumbled unhappily.

"Whatever." She tossed him the controller and turned on the gaming system. "I beat it in five hours, but if you think it's too hard..."

"I can beat it." Duane announced and grabbed the controller. Aubrey smiled. The kid had a competitive streak. A good thing for someone living in a world like this. Non-competitive people tended to give up more easily. Competitive people just keep going, even when there's no competition.

She opened the hatch and told Grimm to stay. Just before she closed it, she looked back at Duane and caught the kid staring at her with unguarded fear for what might happen. She gave the kid a brave smile and a thumbs up, and in her best Arnold voice said, "I'll be back."

She saw a weak smile before closing the hatch and locking it behind her.

* * *

She slipped through the doorway, then down a hallway that led to the main portion of her house and the stairs to the second level. She slid quickly around the banister and took the stairs two at a time then turned left at the top, facing the front of the house where the still-unaccounted-for Caddy Shack had last been seen. In the guest bedroom decorated in nautical style, Aubrey squatted down and duck-walked to the window overlooking the front porch and front lawn. The porch was covered, but if Caddy Shack moved out into the yard, she would have a good bead on him. Wood blinds covered the windows and were pulled closed.

She used a single finger to lift one of the slats and gain a view of the front yard. The view was too narrow. She couldn't see Caddy Shack.

"Sonofabitch..." She dropped her go-to-hell pack with a little less caution than normal.

Something hard on the bottom of the pack made a heavy thump on the hardwood floors. She cringed. Somewhere in one of the upstairs bedrooms, something glass shattered. Aubrey swept the rifle up to her shoulder, thinking, _what the fuck was that?_

Not daring to breathe a word…. she knew damn well what it was. Something was fucking around in one of the upstairs bathrooms and had heard her drop her pack. The warmth in the house wasn't because the thermostat was set a few degrees higher, it was because someone had done enough kicking to break her front door in. Now the heat and humidity— and whoever had kicked the door in— were inside the house. Aubrey kept an eye on the far end of the hallway through the bedroom door and reached with her free hand into her pack and withdrew a suppressor from a side pocket.

She repositioned herself so that she had quick access to the MK23 on her leg should something come into view while she was attaching the suppressor, then turned the M4 skyward and started threading the suppressor. Something crashed down the hall. Aubrey tried to focus on finding the thread, but found herself staring back down the hallway. She didn't want to shoot this fucker without a suppressor on her gun. The noise was loud enough to not only draw attention from other infected in the area, but would draw them right into her house through the open front door.

She heard the sound of something regurgitating, then the splash of fluid on hard-wood floors. Trying to stay calm, she found the thread and started twisting, fast. There was a gasp from down the hallway and then pounding feet. Scratching with each footstep. Like cleats. Or golf shoes. _Come on_... Aubrey twisted as fast as her hands could manage.

Footsteps were at the door.

_Done._

Something loomed into the bedroom. Aubrey brought the rifle up and fought the panicked instinct to just start shooting. She put the red dot center mass on the approaching figure and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession. Both rounds punched neat holes in Caddy Shack's chest, staggering him back into the door. Strangely, the suppressed M4 sounded to Aubrey like the snap of someone driving a golf ball down the fairway. Caddy Shack seemed to recover from the blows after only a second. He looked at her and opened his mouth. Thick red blood dribbled out. He reached out with both hands, the fingers twisted into claws, and lurched towards her. This time Aubrey did shoot reflexively, pulling the trigger three times. Caddy Shack didn't stop coming. She backpedaled fast, pushing her back against the wall and shooting from the hip. It didn't take long for Caddy Shack to cross the bedroom and when he was within arms length, She stopped shooting and kicked out like she was kicking a door in Iraq, connecting with Caddy Shack's chest and sending him to the ground.

The young soldier stumbled, recovered her balance and shoved the suppressor against Caddy Shack's head. The muzzle blast did more damage than the bullet, nearly inverting Caddy Shack's face. Gasping, she fell backwards once she was sure the man was dead and scooted away from the body until her back was against the wall again.

"Fuck me..." she breathed hard, her chest thumping like a kick drum. She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her body and knew if she wasn't holding the M4 in an iron grip, her hands would be shaking. She pulled herself up and stepped over to a bedroom mirror, checking her face for blood spatter, but couldn't find any. The shakiness reached its peak and then the relief flooded her system, her body dumping endorphins into her blood stream. "Whoo," She huffed a few more times, then decided to get moving. She shouldered her pack and moved down the stairs again, leaving Caddy Shack for later. She didn't want the body stinking up the house, but didn't have the time or protective equipment to remove it.

She found the front door open, as she'd suspected. Little circular star marks were dented all over the door. The tiny cleats from his golf shoes. He'd kicked the door God-knew how many times to get it the latch to give. After a quick inspection, she realized her error. Distracted by getting Duane into the house, she had not engaged the deadbolt. Aubrey swore to herself and closed the door, this time turning the deadbolt. Since the frame was steel, it barely showed any damage, and neither did the door. It was simply the latching mechanism that had given way to hundreds of kicks. Since Caddy Shack was no longer an issue, Aubrey felt no need to use stealth on the other. She opened the back patio door and put a bullet in his head. Quick and easy.

Not wanting to waste any more time, she slung her M4 over her shoulder and trotted to the SUV in the driveway before pulling out to the road in search of the survivors.

* * *

Sky blue eyes looked into the rear view mirror at the older pickup following behind them. Glenn sat talking to his passenger who was not visible through the glare but Daryl knew it was Glenn's red head fiance It had been three weeks… or maybe four since they had become engaged and though Daryl was happy for them, he still couldn't see much point in it. Nevertheless he supported their choice with a smirk and a few dirty comments to the man who only took the Asian jokes in stride.

"Heads up, two walkers up by those cars," came the voice of his own passenger Michonne.

Tearing his eyes from the mirror, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "I got it," he said confidently as he carefully turned the car smoothly in between the narrow opening of the cars and the outstretched hands of the walkers rushing to grip any part of the vehicle as they drove past. He glanced back once again and saw that Glenn had followed through easily even with the walkers trying to seize their chance at a fresh meal but the bumper of the truck hit one just enough to cause it to spin backwards to the asphalt.

An arrogant smirk twisted the corner of his lips as he sent a sideways glance at Michonne but she stared off through her window absently, deep in thought.

Daryl on shrugged it off and leaned back more comfortably in the chair as he picked up speed to 50 mph. There was a reason he liked to travel with Michonne. She was quiet, not like the other women that had been in their group or even worse, in their group now. Many were always trying to strike up a conversation with him, at least the ones from Woodbury, and to his dismay, Rick only found it amusing. There had been a few that had even asked to join him on his watch or when he and Glenn went on a run, but he always turned them down with a snide remark of "I ain't babysit a brood who can't shoot for shit."

This was frowned upon by a few of his friends but they never said anything knowing Daryl too well. He felt a little jealously towards Glenn a few times knowing that none of the new women had tried to come onto him out of fear that Maggie would take matters into her own hands. Shit they had a right to fear her. As for his group, Michonne, Beth, Maggie, and Carol were just fine with him and for all he cared, the others could get themselves eaten… _Damn it, that wasn't true_, he scolded himself for thinking so coldly. As much as some were annoying, he wouldn't wish ill will on them. They were part of their group now whether he liked it or not. Besides that, he did get a little benefit from it.

Though he never made any advances towards the other women in HIS group didn't mean he didn't have his needs. Karen, he found out, was just the one to fill that gap. Just casual, rough, needy sex.

The fiery dark-haired woman was a looker with her wavy black hair not too thin body and the fact she was a strong fighter didn't hinder her appeal one bit. After himself and Rick had brought her back with the others of Woodbury, she had immediately, came to give him her "thanks" for rescuing her. While he was in the watch tower, he saw her coming and rolled his eyes expecting her to do something like "keep him company"…. Well in a way she did… in the more physical meaning.

But for him that was all it was. Just a way to get it out of his system and put his male cravings to rest. There were no feelings for her and even as she had come to him previously in the day to beg him to allow her with them on the run, he refused. He didn't know her that well. He didn't trust her. It was no secret she had been the Governor's fuck buddy before Andrea got involved and that part only made him more adamant to not put any trust in her.

"We should be coming up on the city outskirts in an hour," Michonne said calmly, breaking his train of thought.

"Hmm," he acknowledged.

Dark eyes looked to him calmly before adding, "I wanted to do a little recon around the area before we go into the gated community. It would be an ideal area for an ambush. We may need to camp there for the night too just to be safe."

Blue eyes met hers for a moment as he thought over her statement before nodding. "Yes ma'am," he said in a mocking tone.

She only smirked and looked back to the road, knowing when he was teasing.

Resting his left elbow on the window sill, he chewed the nail on his thumb while the other rested on the top of the stirring wheel. In the back of his mind he knew there was going to be a lot of walkers in the area but he could only hope there wouldn't be much else. He was too tired to deal with anymore shit after the last few weeks.

The asphalt stretched out before them and the trees blew from side to side as the wind picked up. He couldn't help but wonder what they would find in the city ahead.

* * *

She'd been on the road for nearly a half-hour when she finally came to a stop and looked out across a field, to a house in the distance. She just couldn't see anyone on the roof.

There was a deep drainage ditch on the side of the road, separating her from the field that stretched out to the house. Traversing the ditch in the SUV was out of the question. It was possible that she could make it, but she preferred to be sure that her getaway vehicle would be ready for her if things went bad and she had to get lost. However, she did pull the vehicle as far off the roadway as she felt comfortable with, then exited and closed and locked the door quietly. She hitched up her go-to-hell pack and dipped down into the drainage culvert. If she could get within a few hundred yards of the house she might be able to communicate with the people supposedly on the roof and hopefully plan an exit for them if they were there and if the threat of infected still remained.

Aubrey held out hope that the infected that had tried to kill the family earlier would have lost interest and left the area while they were still safely nearby. She had absolute confidence in her ability to take on a threat, but there was no denying that the warped and destroyed minds of the people infected with the plague didn't go down easy. And taking on ten of them at a time was going to be that much harder.

She climbed up out of the ditch and headed towards the house, skirting along a small clump of trees that bordered the field. She moved at a trot, stopping every few moments to survey the area and check behind her. Each time she checked, she looked back at her vehicle. She didn't like the way it was sitting there, all alone and painfully conspicuous on the side of the road. It was begging for attention. She also took the time to look at the house and see what she could through the windows and the open front door, but she was either too far to see the movement, or there was simply no one inside or on top of the roof.

As quietly as a shadow, she moved along the brush and trees of the woodland for more concealment until something caught her attention as the side of the house came in view.

A Humvee and a grey dodge truck sat parked along the side of the house.

Two thoughts ran through her mind at the sight of the dark green military Humvee that sat waiting patiently. Friendly's was the first thought but as soon as she saw the occupants of the backyard, she knew she was very wrong.

As a man with a rifle came around the front of the house, while unzipping his pants, he paused and looked to the road. Aubrey cursed under her breath as she gripped her own gun next to her side.

"H-Hey!" a sharp whistle pierced the air as he ran back to the backyard, forgetting his unbuttoned pants.

Aubrey looked back at the Escalade parked by the road and she itched to run to it but she knew it was not possible. By the time she reached her car, they would already be in theirs and on their way to her. Not to mention that they would only follow her back to her house and she refused to bring these men near Duane or Grimm. _So much for quick get away…_

Gritting her teeth she cursed and turned to step deeper into the woods to hide herself when the sound of the vehicles starting made her pause. A man, dressed in a black button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark pants stepped out to the front porch of the house as two Humvees rolled out from the backyard and charged to the parked SUV at the roadside. He watched in interest as his men blocked the SUV in and set to investigate.

Aubrey narrowed her eyes at the man, who was no doubt a threat and she knew instantly she did not want to cross his path if the eye patch was any indication.

Before she could delve deeper into her thoughts, a snap of a twig caught her attention and with lightening speed, her M4 was aimed right towards the sound of two people who stopped dead in their tracks.

A mother and her daughter… by the looks of them, Aubrey assumed that these were the original occupants of the house. A finger rose to her lips and she dropped her weapon, knowing that these two were no threats if they were hiding in the woods as she was.

The young soldier nodded her head to the side, indicating they move further from the house and the blonde woman nodded in understanding. Picking up the girl, who was no more then 9 years old, she followed Aubrey behind some high brush while still keeping the dangerous men in view.

"Were you the ones on the roof here?" Aubrey had to know.

The lady only nodded before somehow finding her own voice. "My husband too."

Aubrey noted the swell of tears in the woman's blue eyes and figured she already knew the answer to her next question. "Where is he?"

The little girl in her arms sobbed but a hand was quickly clamped over her mouth as her mother looked frantically between the men beyond the trees with wide frightened eyes. Once sure that none had heard, she turned back to Aubrey who was still watching the man on the porch. "He's.. dead. They shot him."

Grey eyes looked to the woman who brushed her fingers through the girl's hair while shushing her with false bravery. "Are you really military?"

The question seemed odd to Aubrey but she quickly remembered that in this new world, the military was almost non-existent to what it was before. "I'm a Captain with the Air Force. My name's Aubrey," she answered quietly. Looking at the pale faces of the two survivors she took off her pack and set it on the ground.

From the main portion she withdrew four bottles of water, setting two on the ground and handing one to each of the two. "They're not cold," Aubrey advised. "Drink it slow at first or you might vomit."

While the two survivors undid the caps on their bottles of water and sipped at them, obviously using significant self-restraint to keep from gulping them down, she scanned the perimeter of the property, but saw the men were still occupied. Satisfied, she closed the main portion of her pack, and opened a smaller section where she kept a stash of medical supplies. From inside she pulled out two packs of electrolyte tablets and two ice packs to cool them down. The young captain handed the packs of electrolyte tablets to the mother. "When you get done with the bottle of water, put both tablets in the next bottle and shake it up. They'll help re-hydrate you."

She nodded with a quiet thanks of appreciation and helped her daughter up. "I'm Angela. Where you coming here to help us? How did you know we were here?"

"A kid I found had said he seen someone on the roof of a house around here…," as if it was enough of an explanation. With the situation they were currently in it would have to do. "I know it is not my place to ask but what happened?"

Sighing, Angela looked to her daughter who's sobs were quieting down. Aubrey only looked back out and watched the men, hoping she may wait them out and before moving the two survivors with her to safety.

"We were on the rooftop for a few days when the dead came. One morning my husband woke up and the dead were nowhere to be seen so he thought it would be ok to get back inside the house. What we didn't know was that they were inside and… and… he was bitten…," she paused and bit back tears while clenching her eyes tight. "We stayed on the roof for the next few hours… All the dead were out in the back yard-oh God- he turned so quickly! He was trying to get us just like everyone else. But when the men came, they had started shooting all the dead, even Jim… We were so afraid and jumped down before they could see us and ran into the woods. I-I wasn't sure if they were… if they were good, but we saw you here…." She trailed off.

"And how did you know I wasn't bad?"

"You didn't shoot us."

_Well, there was that…_

Before she could comment further the deep voice of who she assumed was the leader called to the men by the road.

"Whoever owns that car is somewhere nearby. I want them found!" The man with the eye patch disappeared inside the house and shortly after appeared in the backyard next to his Dodge Ram.

Outside of the vehicles, two figures were inspecting the inside of her SUV, while three others approached the woods from the road. A remnant of the US Military? More likely just pirated US Military equipment.

Aubrey brought her rifle up, using her scope to look at the three men approaching. One of them wore plain tan shirt and darker cargo pants, the other wore ACU's, but lacked any identifying marks and wasn't wearing Kevlar, which made them look like civilians that had raided an army-navy store. The third wore an old denim jacket, grey shirt and jeans. All three carried high powered rifles. They walked with the rifles across their chests, not addressed towards the house or woods. Lackadaisical.

If they were military, they were most likely a non-active unit, or reservists. They were not equipped and they did not act like an active military unit. Whether their intentions were good or bad, Aubrey didn't know, and now was not the time to find out. She racked her brain for any readily available plan to snatch back her SUV, but none of them were possible with the two survivors to look after. She lowered the scope and estimated the distance. The three approaching men were about 400 yards out, and walking at a slow but steady pace. That gave Aubrey and her two survivors only a few short minutes to get the hell out of the area. She pulled herself back around the tree she had her back against. The two girls were staring up at her with wide, expectant eyes. "We gotta move."

"What...?" Angela stood and her daughter followed suit.

Aubrey grabbed her by the shoulder and gave her a gentle push away from the house. "Head deeper in the woods. Those people coming. I don't know if they are friendly, and we're not finding out."

"They could be here to help." Angela argued over her shoulder, stumbling along with Aubrey. "They could be friendly. We were scared-we ran before we found out-"

"There's five of them and they're all armed." The younger woman said, lowering her voice, despite the urgency spurring her feet. "If they don't have our best interests in mind, we're fucked... excuse me."

Angela craned her neck behind her, trying to catch a glimpse of the newcomers. Aubrey kept a hand on her shoulder and a hand on the young girl's, and kept steering them towards the woods. "Come on," she said. "I know you guys are tired, but we gotta pick up the pace."

"What about your car?" the daughter whined loudly. "How are we gonna get back to a safe place?"

"Ssh!" Aubrey hissed, looking behind her as though she expected a barrage of shots in response. "Speak quietly! They have my car now. We have to walk."

They hit a hill through the trees and she dropped to one knee, tugging on their shoulders and gesturing for them to do likewise. Angela and her daughter crowded in close and traded concerned looks, back and forth from their house to Aubrey. Her speech was a rapid whisper. "You guys keep going straight through the woods until you can't see the house anymore. I'm going to bring up the rear. When you can't see the house anymore, lay down and hide. I'll find you."

"How will you find us if we're hiding?" Angela's daughter asked.

"Because I'm good at that kind of thing." Aubrey looked sternly at both of them. "You both need to start trusting me. If you want to stay alive until I can get you to safety, you will do exactly as I tell you. Don't question me, and don't try to out-think me. Now go."

Angela understood, although the little girl was still attempting to grasp the concept. Her mother grabbed her hand and silently headed deeper into the woods without looking back. They moved quickly and loudly, each footfall like an earthquake to Aubrey. She just hoped the incoming personnel didn't notice. She waited for a moment, then swiveled and duck-walked over a few feet to a large tree and peered around it, her rifle raised. She worked herself around until she got a good angle on the house through the brush, and looked through her scope.

Nothing yet.

She stood and quietly sidestepped her way further into the woods and away from the house, keeping as much concealing brush and trees between her and the line of the woods. About 20 yards behind her, the woods sloped down. If she could make it to that slope...

Too late.

The three men cleared the wood line to her right. One of them moved like a professional— the clean cut Hispanic man with jeans— his rifle was shouldered at low-ready and his body pivoted like a tank turret. Everywhere his eyes went, his rifle went, and he cleared the corner quickly and smoothly, gaining an angle on the forest 50 yards from her. Then he motioned his two comrades forward.

That was Aubrey's cue to leave.

She pushed off the tree and made a dash for the down-slope, then took the hill head on and flew down at literal break-neck speed, maximizing the opportunity of having all three unidentified persons distracted by clearing the top of the woods. She continued her sprint until she felt she'd lost enough altitude that they would not be able to see her over the hill crest. She stopped and turned, looking back, and could not see the house or the top of the hill. She took a brief moment to catch her breath from the sprint and took in her surroundings, attempting to get her bearings.

She needed to find Angela and the girl and formulate a plan of action. For a brief moment, she felt out of her depth, one of those crippling and paralyzing moments where one realizes that people are relying on you, and that you cannot fail them. The responsibility of Angela and her daughter, and Duane back at her house who was probably wondering what the hell was taking Aubrey so long, felt like a rope around her chest, tightening steadily.

Then she took another breath, shook her head and the feeling was gone. She needed to find the two survivors, make a plan that would keep everyone safe and not require too much strenuous activity from the dehydrated and undernourished mother and daughter, and get everyone back to the house before Duane lost it and wandered off, believing Aubrey was dead. But the first thing was simply to start looking for Angela and her daughter. Compartmentalize.

So Aubrey started walking, and looking for signs of human foot-traffic through the woods. Unbeknownst to her, the presence of survivors had not gone unnoticed by the unidentified personnel that had cleared the partial wood line. After securing the premises and calling in the rest of the guys, the man with the eye patch took a good long look at the tree near the road, where the overgrown grass was matted down like people had been laying in it, and the couple of empty water bottles and the two empty packets of electrolyte tablets were still lying in the grass. There were also two ice packs, still cold, and sweating in the heat.

It looked to him like two people were rescued, which meant there had to be at least one rescuer. At least three people, unaccounted for. And one of them had medical supplies.

**Sooo Sorry I promise that next time will be when they meet with Daryl and the group! And don't worry. Other then Duane and Aubrey, the other two survivors won't be much in the story. They are just what Aubrey needed to meet with Daryl in the first place. It will all be revealed next chapter!**

**Thank you to all reviewers and from here on out will be the good stuff (promise!)**


	5. Chapter 4

**Hello to everyone! Thanks for joining in for those who have stuck around so far! Here's chapter 4…. Or 5 if you count the prologue! About time we get to the point huh? **

**Well FYI during this chapter (because it was getting too long) Daryl's group is at the town they needed to be at and currently doing their usual thing of killing Walkers and gathering supplies. We will see them shortly. **

**Don't own remaining or Walking Dead**

**Chapter 4**:

Angela's eyebrows narrowed at Aubrey as they hurried through the darkening forest with her daughter in her arms. The sun had began to reach lower in the sky but the group was making smooth progress with the lowering temperatures despite Angela and her daughter, Sara, being so dehydrated. "Wait... do you have power?"

Aubrey looked at the two expectant faces staring at her. "Yes. My house and my bunker are wired to a battery bank. It's trickle charged by solar panels throughout the day."

"So..." Angela looked like she was thinking it was too good to be true. "... When do the batteries run out?"

"They don't. The solar panels recharge them."

"So you have power indefinitely?"

"Pretty much." The look on Angela's face could almost be called wonder. "Like... air conditioning and everything?"

"Air conditioning, hot water, you name it." Aubrey smiled at Angela and Sara who were looking at her like she was St. Peter taking them into heaven. "Being down there, it's almost like the old world."

"I'm taking a hot shower." Angela declared, as though checking something off of her bucket list.

Sara smiled wistfully. "I'm gonna have a big glass of cold water." She looked at Aubrey then started bashfully as she seemed to remember her manners. "If…you have a fridge…."

"Yup." Aubrey switched topics towards the blond mother. "I need to really talk to you about what's been going on. Keep in mind that, while I have some nice supplies, you guys are the ones with all the knowledge. I need you to bring me up to speed."

"Sure." Angela shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

"Have you seen that group of guys from earlier before?"

Angela's shook her head.

"Well I think I can safely assume one thing." Aubrey shifted her pack. "Obviously I think they're civilians that raided an armory."

"Or took out a guard unit and stole their stuff? National Guard was all over this place about 5 months ago. Had choppers flying everywhere and Humvees escorting busloads of evacuees to FEMA camps." Angela spoke up, but seemed to speak quietly. "They seemed like military to me."

Aubrey continued despite the obvious fact of laziness displayed by some of the men screamed non-experienced. "Have you heard of any units going rogue?"

The older woman paused thinking over everything that happened the last year. "I s'pose it's possible, but I haven't heard anything 'bout any particular military going rogue."

"What have you heard about them?"

"Ummm sorta like a protection racket," Angela answered. "How some have went around manipulating people to join them or to give them everything they have for the cause of them trying to kill all the…. infected….That's sick how people take advantage of situations like this."

"There's a power vacuum," Aubrey stated with a shrug. "Every yahoo with a gun and something to prove is going to be trying to fill that void. Some are going to be worse than others."

Angela looked right at the soldier as she stepped over a fallen log with Sara in her arms. "But you're not one of them?"

Aubrey tried not to take offense. She smiled instead. "I'm not a 'yahoo with a gun.' I'm a member of the United States military. And I'm not looking for power either. Just trying to help." The two girls stopped close behind her suddenly, and the soldier immediately brought her rifle to a low-ready and scanned the trees.

"What is it?" Aubrey asked as Angela's head was lifted skyward just slightly, and the brunette thought she heard her take a deep breath through her nose.

"You smell that?" the blonde woman asked.

Aubrey took a moment to sniff the air and caught it. "Smells like something's burning." The blonde nodded. The soldier knew the scent quite well. She'd smelled it several times during the Iraq invasion. It was the smell of artificial products burning, like plastic on fire. It was a rank, noxious smell when you were up close, but now it only tinged the air. When she smelled it again she thought of dusty streets, everything in sandy desert tones, walls close in and high up, dark windows staring down, everything tainted with the residue of smoke and pockmarked with bullet holes. Everyone was silent for a long minute, considering what this meant, like they were all seers watching a hawk fly by, determining the secret omen it bore. She turned slightly to the left and pointed. "The road should be that way."

She began walking in that direction. "We should cross now." Without argument, the other two followed.

It didn't take long for them to reach the road. In more normal times, Aubrey had walked these woods for pleasure and exercise with her teammates. They'd always found their way back to the road by the sound of cars passing by, like the sound of a river. Now the road was empty and silent and Aubrey almost stepped out onto the asphalt before she realized she was there. The party stopped just inside the wood line where, past the trees, the shoulder of the road rose slightly to the asphalt. She knelt down, Angela and Sara hovering close behind her, while she surveyed the road in both directions.

"How far is your house, lady?" Sara whispered.

Aubrey looked both directions down the road, but being in the woods had disoriented her to what section of the road this was. She could be a mile from the house, or ten. Luckily, she'd been keeping steady track of the amount of time they'd been walking, and ran some quick numbers in her head.

"Rough guesstimate... maybe two miles?"

Sara didn't answer.

The kid was being a trooper hanging in there, but when a kid didn't complain, you had to wonder what was wrong. Aubrey's best guess was that she was so tired and dehydrated that she didn't have the energy to complain. Her body and her mind were in survival mode. She turned and looked at the two girls. Both of them looked rough, to say the least. The few bottles of water she'd been able to give them would have barely hydrated them in the state they were when they came off the roof, and certainly not now after a couple hours of hiking. She noticed that Angela was massaging her thigh and she suspected muscle cramps. She needed to get an IV in both of them.

They couldn't go on like this forever. She was pretty sure they could make it to the house, though. And then she could rehydrate them and get them back into working shape.

"You guys ready? We're almost there." They both stood slowly and Aubrey motioned them forward. Angela jogged with her little girl across the road and disappeared into the woods on the other side. The brunette waited until they were safe in the woods, then crossed quickly. They continued into the woods until they could just barely make out the black top, and then turned due east, heading once again in the direction of the house.

As they walked, Aubrey noticed that the acrid smell of burning materials had grown slightly stronger. There was a slight haze hanging in the forest, but she could not tell if it was light smoke or the last bit of dew burning off in the warming sun. She kept her observations to herself, as she did not believe they would serve any purpose but to worry the others. In her mind, she pictured the house burning to the ground, encircled by raiders dressed in leather, like extras out of Mad Max, all laughing and chanting like Indians around a bonfire. They had hiked approximately another 200 yards when she heard what she initially thought was someone shouting, but then immediately recognized it as barking.

Specifically, Grimm's barking.

"Whoa," she held up a hand and everyone stopped walking. They all stood in the middle of the forest, straining eyes and ears for any signs of danger. "That's my dog."

"How can you tell?" Angela asked.

"I know Grimm's bark."

"I thought he was in your bunker." Angela spoke almost under her breath, as though she was pointing something out that would anger or embarrass Aubrey.

"He was." Aubrey nodded with narrowed eyes at the choking sensation crawling up her throat. "If he's out, the kid's out."

No one spoke.

Grimm barked three more times, and Aubrey realized he was getting closer. They were upwind and Grimm had sniffed his master out. That was all good and well, but why the fuck was he outside to begin with?

The dog burst through a sheen of thick brush and came running full speed for Aubrey, tail circling wildly behind him like a propeller. She was glad to see Grimm unharmed but she couldn't help feel a greasy feeling of dread. Where was Duane? And what had happened?

She held up a hand and bent down to one knee as Grimm approached, slowing to a trot, then coming to a halt before his master, tail sweeping an arc of leaves from the forest floor behind him. Just happy to see her. She gave him a quick scratch on the head and then looked up to the woods. She didn't have to wait for long before she saw a small, skinny figure running toward the group in that awkward prepubescent manner.

Duane saw them, waved once, but then kept looking behind him, as though he were being pursued.

"Fuck..." She held her rifle at a low ready. "Something's wrong."

"Yeah." Apparently Angela had come to the same conclusion.

Aubrey didn't know what to expect from Duane, but the kid ran up and latched onto her, clinging around her waist, and it broke Aubrey's heart. She wasn't this kid's parent. She couldn't be that person for him, and didn't have the time even if she wanted to.

She knew it was harsh but her missions always consisted of rescue and then go back to camp… not this much socializing with civilians that she helped…

"Duane, what happened?" she asked sternly. The kid was out of breath.

He kept glancing back into the woods but then he spoke between gulps of air. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We thought you were dead." Duane's voice broke as he said the last part.

_Dammit..._ Aubrey was trying not to be angry. "Why aren't you in the bunker?"

"I took Grimm outside so he could go to the bathroom. Then some army men came. I was scared. They didn't look nice. We hid in the woods, and they went into your house. They took everything out. Then they set it on fire."

Aubrey stared down at the kid clinging to her like a life raft. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she said without thinking.

"Captain!" Angela hissed behind her. Immediately tears sprang into Duane's eyes and Aubrey regretted yelling at the kid, though she was still pissed as hell.

"I said I was sorry."

_Sorry doesn't stop my house from burning down!_ But Aubrey kept it to herself this time. She removed the kid from her leg— perhaps a little roughly— and pushed him into Angela's arms. "Watch him. And don't go anywhere."

She looked at Grimm. "You're with me, boy" And the two took off at a run.

* * *

The haze in the trees was thickening and above the forest canopy Aubrey could see a dark column of smoke rising into the sky. The smoke was dark tendrils and light-gray mixing together like cloudy, boiling water.

From her new vantage point with Grimm at her side, much closer to the edge of the woods, Aubrey could see the house. Or what was left of it. It was still on fire, although it was beginning to smolder. It had obviously been lit on fire several hours ago, as the fire had completely eaten the structure and the upstairs had completely collapsed in on itself. What little remained of the house jutted up out of the ground, burnt and uneven walls, sagging and torn down. Like the rib cage of a recently gutted animal.

For a moment, Aubrey couldn't speak. It wasn't the house that she was attached to. In fact, it wasn't anything that she was attached to. It was purely a matter of survival that she now felt like a vice grip was being ratcheted down on her stomach. The house was unnecessary, but now the bunker was covered in what looked like five feet of burning rubble. Inside were supplies that meant the difference between life and death. Desperately needed food and water were now inaccessible, if they were even still down there. In all likelihood, whatever raiding party had come along and burned the house, had cleaned it out of anything useful prior to lighting the match.

The guns and ammo would be gone, without a doubt. Some of the more sensitive equipment they may have left alone— not knowing what it was or how it could help them just meant it was extra weight. The second immediate concern was the medical supplies. She hadn't truly concerned herself with the condition that Angela and Sara were in. The truth was, while she'd stabilized their malnutrition and dehydration as best she could with the supplies she'd had in her Hell pack, they were both still in a bad state, and getting worse by the hour. She had been relying on the ability to get them to her bunker and stick them both with IV's to rehydrate and stuff them with MRE's for a few days to get their strength back up.

Without that possibility, their chances looked bleaker by the minute and Aubrey didn't have any food or water left in her pack. Without those essential supplies, she had to put a timeline on each of their lives. Aubrey, Duane, and Grimm were fairly well fed and hydrated as of this morning, which meant they could probably go without water for the next two days, given the heat and stress level.

She gave Angela and Sara until the following night. Without a word, Aubrey dropped her pack and knelt down on one knee. She unzipped one of the front pockets and thrust her hand in, rooting around for a second before withdrawing the GPS device. She knew it was in there, knew it was safe and still in her possession, but in that moment she needed to look at it and touch it. It was hope made tangible.

"What's that?" Angela asked as she came up behind her.

Aubrey just breathed a sigh of momentary relief, ignoring the fact that the blonde had followed her despite the order to stay hidden, and shoved the device back in the pack.

"Let's just say it's an insurance policy." Aubrey hauled the pack onto her shoulders again. Focus. Compartmentalize. The bunker was no longer an option for shelter, but she had to get Angela, Sara and Duane into some sort of safe place.

"I'm pretty sure they burned the house just to get to you. They must've gotten your address from your truck."

"My registration," Aubrey nodded. The general consensus was that this had been done by the rogue army unit. "I need to check out my neighbor's house. We're going to need to get our group in doors. Hopefully they didn't burn that house down, too."

Angela just shook her head. "Hoping is a bad habit these days."

* * *

A few hundred yards east, she found the three rescues crouched down near a large tree. Grimm watched his master approach with a wagging tail as she caught Angela's eyes and jerked her head to the side. The mother rose from her crouch with the two children, telling them to stay there then she walked a few paces away and conferred quietly with Aubrey.

"What did you find?" As she spoke, Aubrey noticed her unsteadiness on her feet and the crusted salt deposits around her eyes, nose and mouth. Her dehydration was worse than Sara's. Aubrey figured she'd given her daughter most of the water when they were on the rooftop.

"My house is gone, but my neighbor's house is still there. We're gonna hole up in there for a while."

Angela looked heartbroken. "What about... the medical supplies? What about Sara? How are you gonna help her?"

Aubrey shook her head. "I don't have any medical supplies right now."

Angela's worn face contorted like she was about to start crying. Or maybe her body simply didn't have the moisture to spare for tears.

"Look, we have some time... it's just not much." Aubrey put her hand on Angela's shoulder. It felt frail and bony. "We're going to get you guys indoors, and we'll figure it out from there."

"What if she doesn't make it?" Angela croaked. "I can't do it. I can't lose her... I can't lose anyone else." Her voice was low enough that the kids couldn't understand her, but they understood the tone of her voice and looked up in that way that children do when they know something is wrong.

"Angela, she's going to make it." Aubrey had no way to back up that promise. "We'll do whatever we have to do. But right now we need to go." She didn't wait for an answer as she turned Angela so she was facing the correct direction, then beckoned for the kids to join them. They both shuffled to their feet and she led the group through the woods, taking the same way she'd travelled the previous two times. With the smoke and commotion, Aubrey knew it was going to attract unwanted attention from the area and it wasn't the living she was worried about.

Urgency spurred her on, but she forced herself to keep the pace slow so the kids could keep up. For the first time she noticed her own body showing the signs of fatigue through hunger and dehydration. Besides the hunger, which she'd learned to ignore long ago, her hands felt shaky, and her mouth was getting dry. Every once in a while, despite the heat of the day, she felt a chill work its way through her body.

Once they were safely inside the house, she looked up to Duane. "I need you to keep watch while I try to get some water for the girls."

Duane spoke up. "I'm thirsty, too."

"Buddy," she tried to keep her voice lighthearted, tried to disguise the severity of the situation. "We're all thirsty, but…." She paused as a wave of guilt washed over her. She sighed. "But, I'll make sure I try to get enough for you and Grimm too."

She rifled through the cupboards and cabinets and came up with a plastic pitcher and a coffee mug. Taking these, she went to the sink and put the coffee mug under the faucet as she hoped there was enough pressure in the pipes to give a little bit of water. Turning on the faucet yielded a pathetic groan from the pipes and a tiny squirt of water that filled the coffee mug about halfway. Without humor, Aubrey thought that this was definitely a case of the glass being half empty. Nevertheless, she deposited the bit she had into the pitcher and headed for the downstairs bathroom, which was near to the front door. The smell from the bathroom was obvious and not a good sign.

So that meant her last ditch effort was in the garage. She went down to the first floor and exited into the garage via the door in the kitchen and was greeted with a positive amongst all the negatives: the Simmon's Ford F-150 was still sitting in the garage. The young woman hoped that she could find the keys, and that the Simmons had left her a little fuel. The roads weren't the safest route to travel in these circumstances— in fact, they were decidedly deadly— but Aubrey was trying to count the little things. If they needed emergency transportation, they had it... maybe.

Off to the side of the garage, Aubrey opened the utility closet and found the hot water heater. Dropping her Hell pack, she extracted her knife from inside and tapped the side of the water heater. The sound was the best sound she had heard all day.

"Thank you, Jesus," she mumbled as she'd tapped the tank low to the ground and estimated that there were at least a few gallons from the point she'd tapped. Just to test, she tapped a little higher. This time she heard a hollow clank. So there wasn't much water in the tank, but a few gallons were better than nothing. She crammed the pitcher under the drain spout for the water heater and cranked the ball valve. Clear water flowed out and Aubrey thought it looked beautiful.

With the angle she had to tilt the pitcher, she was only able to fill it about halfway. With a lighter air she brought the pitcher of water back into the house, carrying it like it was liquid gold. She grabbed another two cups and bowl from the kitchen cabinets and took everything into the dining room.

The look on Angela's face was one of immense relief. Aubrey poured a glass of water for both of them, speaking as she handed them out. "Drink it very slow. You're both extremely dehydrated and if you drink it too fast you're going to throw it up."

She poured some water into the bowl and whistled for Grimm who trotted over before lapping at the clear liquid happily. Looking over she handed the last mug to Duane who gave a quiet thank you and she smiled in return. The small gesture seemed to relax him as he returned it before going to sit next to Sara at the little dining table.

Aubrey looked to the group as she sat on the couch, letting them relax as she pulled her hair from the messy bun, letting brunette locks flow in a wave down to the middle of her back. Fingers carefully pulled the kinks and leaves out before she lazily braided her hair to the side. She never got a chance to reload her ammo like she had wanted to but it was too late to think about it. Her uniform was dirty and ragged and dirt and smoke darkened her light complexion. Sighing she turned her attention to the others.

"We need to move."

The group looked at her.

"In the morning, I mean. We'll sleep here tonight, but we can't stay here. The little bit of water we had is just holding off the dehydration, not curing it. And we have no food at all. We need to find you someplace to stay."

"What do you mean 'find us someplace'?" Duane leaned forward. "What about you?"

Aubrey twisted in her seat and looked to Duane's worried eyes. "I'll stay there, too. But I'll have to leave to get a resupply. I need to leave you guys in a defensible location, that has some food and water."

Angela leaned back against the chair and spoke quietly. "Why don't you tell us about that insurance policy, captain?"

Aubrey faced her.

"What are you talking about?" Duane asked confused.

"Your GPS device? What's on there?"

Aubrey stared straight ahead and didn't answer.

"What's she talking about, Aubrey?"

Angela and Duane waited in pregnant silence for a response from Aubrey, but she wasn't sure how to tell them. Sara only looked tired but took another sip of her water, too exhausted and young to worry what the older people in the room were discussing. Instead she opted to pet Grimm who sniffed at her hand and licked politely.

Aubrey on the other hand was lost. The facts were likely to only make them angry. The facts were also very dangerous, not only to her but to anyone that knew them. And the more people knew, the more dangerous the secret got for the captain.

Then again, they deserved some sort of explanation. She couldn't expect two capable people to simply trust her implicitly with their very survival. She needed to tell them enough that they would trust her decisions, but not so much that she was putting them or herself at unnecessary risk.

"Fine." She nodded slowly. "Understand that everything I say is going to be the short version. It's not because I don't trust either of you, but it's for your safety. And what I do tell you needs to be kept between us. Agreed?"

Angela and Duane both nodded. "There are going to be groups out there. Groups of survivors that have banded together for protection. It's these groups that I'm supposed to unite and attempt to rebuild a centralized government. However, as one man— especially an outsider— I'm of no value to them. They'll never trust me, never listen to me. I have to bring something to the table. Something they can't say 'no' to.

"Think of the GPS as a bargaining chip. It gives me the upper hand when I'm negotiating with these groups of survivors. It will be what brings them together, not me. The only issue is, with that much sway, I also make myself a huge target. Anyone that knows what's on this GPS is going to be a target. There's going to be a lot of people that will believe it will be better to simply take it from me, rather than work with me. Because of that, there are fail-safes in place to keep this bargaining chip out of the wrong hands. The first and most important is that I am the only one with access to it.

"Obviously, if I were to tell you what was on the GPS, or where these things were, you would also become a target. So I won't tell you, but I'm sure you can reasonably infer what I'm talking about."

Duane's eyebrows went up. "Ummm..."

Angela cut him off. "Guns, ammo, food, water, medicine..." She smiled. "You're holding all the keys to survival. You got everyone begging for you to help."

Aubrey didn't directly confirm Angela's theory. "Don't read anything underhanded into it, Angela. I'm here to help, not conquer the world. The only caution is that I do have an ulterior motive: If you want to play with my toys, you gotta play nice."

Angela shrugged. "I've got no problem with it."

"So..." Duane seemed like he was still trying to wrap his head around it. "What do we do now?"

Aubrey looked back at him. "Tomorrow, we have to find somebody to take us in. They won't want to at first. They'll be suspicious of outsiders. But I'm pretty sure I can convince them. The hard part will be finding them."

"What are we looking for?" Angela seemed more in tune now.

"A large group of survivors. Could be individuals who banded together out of necessity and are now holding a defensible location, or it could be a group of people that were already a community prior to the collapse and have fortified their position." Aubrey rubbed her face and felt the sweat had mostly dried. "The most likely places to find these groups will be locations where some sort of security or fortification already exists."

"What type of security are we talking about?" Angela asked.

"Could be many different things. A factory with a tall fence around it. A gated community. Even just an industrial building with heavy doors on it."

"I'm not real familiar with this area," Duane stated sadly, clearly upset he couldn't offer more help. Aubrey made note to talk to him later and apologize. "You guys know of any places like that around here?"

Aubrey grimaced. "I had a map of places fitting that profile, but it was in my bunker."

"There's a gated community a little closer to town," Angela offered. "I can't think of the name of the road it's on, but I know how to get there."

Aubrey looked thoughtful for a moment. "Do you remember what it was called?"

"Timber Creek," Angela answered immediately. Her voice got quiet. "I had a friend that used to live there. Maggie Dunham. She moved to Raleigh last year."

Aubrey and Duane both sadly looked at Angela for a brief moment but the Captain got back on track. "We'll want to avoid population centers, but the outskirts should be good. I think I remember Timber Creek being towards the edge of town."

Angela nodded. "Yeah. Almost at the city line."

"How long do you think it would take to get there?"

Angela looked around as though she was disoriented for a moment. "I don't know. Maybe twenty minutes?"

A twenty minute drive on surface streets was usually about 15 miles. If Timber Creek was a bust, they would hopefully have enough fuel to try for another location. Hopefully. This was all barring the possibilities of raiders, rogue military factions, and hordes of infected.

* * *

The next morning, Aubrey drove the Ford truck down the road with Duane sitting in the passenger seat with Grimm in-between them. They had been fortunate enough to have a little more than a quarter of a tank left in the trunk but the sad hope of not finding anything at the gated community was not something she could wrap her mind around. Hopefully they wouldn't be forced to move somewhere else in the chance they would run out of gas.

"That's it! Right there!"

Aubrey snapped out of it and saw Angela leaning between the two front seats, pointing out the windshield at the entrance to what looked like it had once been a well-to-do condominium complex to the left of the road. The sign, made of brick and plaster, and missing a few vowels, announced it as "T mber Cre k."

Aubrey slowed down and turned left into the entrance, then rolled to a stop. The inside of the pickup truck was awkwardly silent, as though no one could think of the right thing to say. In the rear view mirror, Angela and Sara were looking out through the windshield at the scene before them. She wasn't quite sure what they'd expected to find, but she knew what they'd hoped to find, and this was not it.

The gates to Timber Creek looked like someone had driven a Mack truck through them. One of them lay mangled, but still clinging to the lever that once opened and closed it. The other one was gone completely. The complex itself looked like someone had burned half of it to the ground, and looted the other half. Burned out husks of cars still sat in their designated parking spaces. Trash and broken glass were littered in every corner. The buildings stood like skulls in a catacomb, their broken windows as black as eye sockets, and just as dead and empty. To keep herself from laughing or crying, Aubrey took a slow, deep breath and tried to let it out quietly, though she was sure everyone in the vehicle knew what mood she was in.

"Well..." she looked around at the mess in front of them. "... I guess we can look around."

And that's when the truck slammed into them from behind.

Aubrey heard the impact like an explosion and felt herself spinning, like she was strapped into a carnival ride as the other three passengers screamed. When they stopped spinning, they were turned nearly 180 degrees counter-clockwise, and were now facing their attacker. Aubrey got the impression of a freight tractor with no trailer attached, its twin exhaust pipes poking up like devil's horns. She didn't wait to see what came out of the truck.

The captain had just enough of an angle to stick her pistol out the driver's side window and still draw a good sight picture on the truck facing them. She pointed for the driver's seat and cranked off her last four rounds. The dark windshield turned into white spider webs.

As she pulled her gun back into her pickup truck and tossed it to the floor seeing as it was out of ammo, she watched as the driver's side door of the truck opened and a bloody body was shoved out like a bag of garbage.

The truck immediately started rolling towards them.

Aubrey tore her eyes off the scene and slammed her pickup's accelerator, steering hard right, trying to maneuver for the wreckage of Timber Creek. With not a bullet between the four of them, she felt their only chance of survival was to evade and outflank their attackers inside the condominium complex. Their vehicle almost made the turn, but the pickup's powerful engine and heavy torque spun the wheels for just a bit too long and, as the soldier wrangled the pickup towards the damaged gate, the freight truck T-boned them on Aubrey's side. Glass shattered inwards like a sharp, horizontal rain.

The kids were screaming like air raid sirens and she heard a popping sound that she thought was the engine malfunctioning and then quickly recognized it as small arms fire.

She smashed the accelerator again, but the pickup wouldn't budge. The two vehicles were hooked together. Instinctively she ducked as two rounds punched clean through the side of her door and missed her midsection by inches.

"Get out!" She yelled at Angela and the kids, who were already opening the rear and passenger side door. She launched herself over the seats, leaving her empty MK23, but grabbing her Hell pack as she shoved open the front passenger side door and leaped out, face first. She tried to pull her arms in front of herself to brace the fall, but the weight of the backpack held them back.

She felt her face slam concrete and tasted blood and grit, and wasn't sure where it was coming from. She was only glad she hadn't blacked out.

Gasping air she staggered to her feet, feeling like it took the soldier ages to accomplish this simple task, and saw Angela and the kids with Grimm, already sprinting through the entrance to Timber Creek. Dirt and concrete chunks exploded around her and Aubrey realized that she was still being shot at.

She sprinted for the entrance of the complex, holding the backpack with one hand and digging in the pockets with the other. Rifle and pistol fire continued to track her as she ran, chewing up the ground and pinging off the metal gate. The only thought in her mind cycled in a tight loop: Get the GPS! Get the GPS! Get the GPS!

"Aubrey!" The scream broke her attention and grey eyes looked up and saw that Angela and the kids were now running back towards her.

She felt her fingers touch the GPS and grabbed it in an iron grip and simultaneously realized why Angela and the kids were running back towards her.

Drawn by the loud noises, three infected were sprinting straight for them. Aubrey didn't have time to plan and didn't have much in the way of weapons, so she simply acted on the first thing that popped into her head. She pulled the GPS out of the backpack and shoved it into her cargo pocket as she charged straight at the approaching infected.

"Run! Keep going!" she called to the three and her canine.

Previously fixated on Angela and the two children and Grimm, who had been set on a leash and being dragged along by Duane, the infected shifted their attention to Aubrey.

The first attacker caught her backpack in the face as Aubrey swung it like a wave. The hit knocked the infected off its feet, but it grabbed the backpack on the way down and Aubrey let him have it. As the next infected approached, she took two big sprinting steps and jumped, slamming both feet into the creature's chest. The two of them tumbled to the ground, a few feet apart and as she tried to get to her feet, she saw Angela and the kids taking advantage of her distraction and flanking around, heading back into the condo complex.

The third infected reached Aubrey before she could react and threw her back to the ground where she was able to angle herself to soften the fall. The infected man was fat and blood was pouring from its mouth as she was on her back looking up at it as it screeched at her. With survival instincts pulsing through her blood she thrust up with one hand, catching the thing around its flabby neck, her only concern to keep it from biting at her. With her other hand she reached down to her boot and yanked out a small thrust dagger she kept there— the only weapon Aubrey had left. The fat man swung wildly at the small woman, grabbing a fistful of Aubrey's face and sinking its dirty fingernails in.

Aubrey screamed in rage and pain and slammed the thrust dagger into the infected's temple, causing it to instantly go limp. The soldier shoved the dead body off of her.

Both of the other infected were now on their feet again and she yanked at her dagger, still imbedded in the side of the fat man's skull, but it would not budge.

"Fucking son-of-a-bitch!," she muttered darkly as panic started to swell at her pores. Aubrey left it, and started running in the last direction she'd seen Angela and the kids headed. Breath came to her in ragged gasps, her legs felt numb as they flew across the concrete, and Aubrey could sense the instability in her sprint and feared her legs might give out before she made it to safety.

She glanced behind her and saw several armed gunman pouring through the front gate, rifles and pistols flashing, but the noise just sounded like muted thumps to the seasoned Captain.

One of the remaining infected's head split open and it tumbled to the ground. The other froze in place, unsure whether to pursue Aubrey or attack the gunmen. Aubrey faced back around and found herself running straight for the door of a ground floor condo.

She didn't think about it, though in the back of her mind she knew it wasn't the best decision to go into a confined space when she was being pursued. Ignoring the dreaded feeling, she hit the door with her shoulder and it shattered open as she felt a spiking pain through her right arm as she stumbled into the condo and immediately regretted this decision.

The room she found herself in was completely black. The windows must have been boarded up by a conscientious condo owner, and the light that pushed through the open door only lit up a small square of the room. But she couldn't go back. Blindly, she kept moving straight ahead, feeling in front of her with her arms. She found a long, narrow hallway, passed a few bedroom doors, felt her boots step on something soft halfway down the hall, but didn't stop to try and see what it was. She made it to a door at the end of the hall and fumbled for the doorknob. Behind her, she heard shouts at the front door. She pushed through the darkness and entered this last room. Again, she was met with pure, inky blackness and she shut the door behind her before locking it. Then she put her hand out to the right wall and started feeling around.

_There had to be a window in this room. Please, God, let there be a window._ Aubrey pushed over furniture, knocked what she thought were pictures off of the walls, and tipped over a chair before finally finding a window. Without hesitation she reared back and put a boot through the glass. The glass shattered easily, but the plywood on the other side did not.

The captain knew it was her only option. This wasn't a prison. She could get out. It would just take some effort. She would not die, gunned down by some fucking raiders in a dark, dead, back bedroom of some looted condominium. Not after all the things she had already survived!

She kicked again at the plywood, this time feeling some slight give. She could hear shouts coming from inside the condo now. Surely they heard her crashing through the darkness and pounding at the window. She had only seconds left before they caught up with her.

With this in mind, she kept slamming her foot into the plywood, feeling it rattle just a little more each time until finally she saw a hint of daylight creeping through the lower left-hand corner of the window. One more kick and the corner of the plywood came loose. For a brief flash as the plywood swung back, Aubrey saw grass on the other side. This time she put her hands to the plywood and pushed as hard as she could, feeling a few more nails come out of the window frame. There was a loud boom at the bedroom door.

"She's in here! She's in here!" Someone shouted.

Aubrey knew the bedroom door wouldn't last long. She pushed the plywood and saw about a foot of daylight through the jagged teeth of the nails that still poked through the plywood. Common sense told her it was going to be painful, but she couldn't wait any longer. She needed to get back to the others and soon.

_Pain was better than death_.

Aubrey gave the plywood covering one last shove and put her head through. As soon as her hand let go of the plywood, it swung back into place and Aubrey felt the nails gouge into her skin. She let out a yell, less because of the immediate pain and more because she knew it was about to hurt_ so much more. _

With the nails already imbedded in her skin, Aubrey thrust her shoulders through the opening, felt the sharp points rip through skin and muscle, clawing down her back. She screamed until her breath ran out, and she couldn't draw another.

Desperation tightened on her lungs and she planted both her hands on the side of the outside wall and pushed with everything she had. The fucking nails were caught on her belt. Through the blinding pain, Aubrey twisted, each movement she made working the nails deeper into her flesh. She grabbed the very corner of the plywood and yanked it out as hard as she possibly could and her belt came free of the snag causing her to fall, the plywood slamming the nails into the side of her left leg, but her downward momentum didn't allow her to stop.

The metal spikes sheared right through her flesh and Aubrey landed in a heap on the ground, felt the grass on her face just as bullets punched through the plywood covering. Aubrey didn't think they would follow her through the window. They would go out and around, which gave her a few precious seconds to escape.

She tried to haul herself to her feet, but found her back in such excruciating pain that she couldn't complete the movement. On hands and knees, she scrambled forward, trying to see where she was going. Pain blurred her vision and made the sun appear white-hot and everything touched by it was blindingly bright.

_The only easy day was yesterday_. Aubrey almost laughed at herself. _Get the fuck up, Aubrey! Get off the fucking ground!_

"There she is!"

Aubrey brought one leg up, the stretch of her flesh spreading the deep lacerations all over her body and causing another wave of intense pain. She managed to put one foot on the ground, and kneeled on one knee, supporting her body with a hand on the grass. She looked behind her.

Some bald guy in a black sleeveless t-shirt was running at her, holding an AR-15. For a moment, through the pain, she could have sworn he was familiar to her in some way but her memory was foggy and she had no intention of hanging around.

"It's her! It's the girl!"

Around the corner of the condominium complex, two more gunmen appeared.

The young woman knew she couldn't outrun them. She looked around for anything she might use as a weapon. A stick, a sharp piece of glass, maybe a 2x4 if she was lucky. Hell she knew they would kill her if she fought, but she also knew that she wasn't going to let them win. In her current state of mind, her imminent death simply seemed... regrettable. She didn't even get to apologize to Duane or play with Grimm one last time…

Focusing on the task at hand, Aubrey couldn't find anything to use, so she focused on the first approaching gunman and decided if the man didn't cap her by the time he got within arms reach, she would play the wounded captive, then she would seize the man's head and plant her thumbs into each of his eye sockets, rip out the eyes and, with enough force, gouge through to the brain. Then she would use the man's rifle to take out the remaining gunmen.

But as the man and his comrades approached Aubrey, a very strange thing happened.

They burst into flame.

The blast of heat nearly knocked Aubrey back onto the ground. The sound of their screaming was even enough to make the soldier's stomach turn as they stumbled around madly and collapsed on the ground in writhing heaps of flame. But over their screams she heard someone call her name out, a voice she didn't recognize.

"Aubrey! Run!"

Aubrey didn't need any encouragement.

The momentary reprieve from certain death boosted her enough to get to her feet and start staggering towards the nearest cover: jagged remains of a condo building, which was now just a few charred brick walls, but hopefully enough to stop a bullet and give Aubrey a long enough moment to assess her situation and perhaps come up with a plan to get herself out of here.

What about Angela and Sara and Duane? Aubrey had to survive first before she could worry about the others. And who was it that had called to her? It had been a man's voice.

Aubrey made it to a waist-high brick wall and clambered over. She fell onto her back on the other side, found that too painful, and rolled onto her side. She looked around, but didn't see anyone.

_Who the hell had called to me? And where were Angela and the kids?_ She began processing what was happening around her. Nearby to her, she was hearing some sporadic pistol fire. It wasn't rapid, but it was close. It was also a smaller caliber.

Further away, Aubrey could hear the crack of more powerful weapons, probably rifles. The two appeared to be exchanging gunfire. She also noted that none of the gunfire seemed to be directed at her position.

Gasping for whatever air her lungs to keep she leaned up and peered over the top of the brick wall. Grey eyes were looking down a wide corridor that was once a parking lot for the condos. On either side of the long parking lot were what remained of the rectangular, two-story condos. There was a single condo building between Aubrey's position and the condo she'd been trapped in. She could see the window she'd snaked out of and it faced the parking lot.

In the darkness of the condo, she'd become disoriented and hadn't realized what direction she'd been facing. At the corner of the condominium building she'd just escaped from, four bodies were still burning, though they'd stopped rolling around. Behind them, Aubrey could see a group of men huddled behind a burned out SUV, taking pot shots at another building across the parking lot and closer to Aubrey's position.

The young Captain followed their fire and saw the muzzle flashes coming from the ground floor of one of the condos facing the parking lot. Then she watched as a young woman with a red hair leaned out of the front door of the condo and hurled a bottle with a flaming tail. The bottle arced high and landed with a splash of fire, just on top of the SUV the gunmen were using for cover. The splash of flaming liquid rained down on the gunmen taking cover there and they immediately began trying to put themselves out. The young woman screamed something at whoever else was inside the condo and began sprinting for Aubrey's position. A second later, she was followed by Angela, Sara, Duane, and a second young man, had a bandana covering his face, this one blue. They moved together in a mass, undisciplined and panicked.

The young man with the blue bandana held a black revolver in one hand, what looked to Aubrey like an old .38 or .357 police issue revolver. He took pot shots as he ran, the rounds flying wildly down range and impacting nowhere near his intended targets. The red haired lady vaulted over the wall and pulled Duane and then Sara over. Angela and Blue Bandana followed with Grimm barking and growling at the enemy shooting random shots.

As soon as they saw her, Duane and Sara both exclaimed in unison, "Captain/Aubrey/! We thought you were dead!"

"No time for reunions!" Red grabbed Aubrey by the arm and hauled her up to her feet. "We need to get the fuck out of here!"

Aubrey craned her neck back at the burning wreckage. "How many more?"

"We counted ten coming in," Blue spoke up as he pushed the kids towards the back of the complex. "I think we got six or seven of 'em."

The group made quickly for the back of the complex. Aubrey patted Grimm who bounded by her side happily as she observed that the entire complex that appeared to be enclosed with the same wrought iron fencing as the front was. It was about ten feet tall with spikes on top and she wasn't sure whether these people expected her to climb it or not, but in her current condition, she thought she might disappoint them.

They hit the fence and started running along it. All six of them were out of breath when she saw what they were looking for. A section of the fence had been pulled away and there was an obvious footpath cutting through the brush on the other side. The two new comers didn't bother to explain as they moved the group single file down the footpath, Aubrey and Blue, who she could see was Asian, now taking point.

She moved the best she could, but each step sent raking pain down her back and legs. The deep lacerations covered so much of her skin that she couldn't find a way to move that didn't feel like it was stretching the wounds apart. Everything began to feel alternately hot, then cold. She could feel the back of her shirt and pants beginning to cling to her skin, soaked with the blood. She was pretty sure she hadn't lost enough blood to cause her to pass out, but the pain was making her feel light-headed.

The two young people that saved them— both perhaps in their early twenties— didn't appear very cautious, and Aubrey got the impression that they were more or less familiar with this territory and felt comfortable that it contained no threats. This made Aubrey feel only slightly better. It was obvious to her that the two of them weren't well trained, and their eagerness to put ground between the gunmen and themselves might be making them move faster than was prudent.

The footpath broke from thick brush into moderate woods and the group swung a hard right. The woods almost instantly cleared into what Aubrey thought was an old service road beneath some power lines. At the edge of the woods, there was a beat-up pickup truck and a SUV and as soon as the group cleared the woods, an older man stepped out of the driver's side of the SUV with a black crossbow in one hand.

He held up a hand and they stopped moving towards the pickup. Aubrey got the distinct feeling that this man was in control.

"What the fuck is this?" he demanded with furrowed brows. Another woman with beautiful dark skin stepped out from the passenger seat with a sword at her side as she studied the group.

Red let go of Aubrey and she and the Asian approached the older man, speaking in low tones, though Aubrey could still hear what they were saying. As she listened, she watched some sparkling spots appear at the corners of her vision and she bent over, trying to keep blood in her brain and keep thinking clearly.

"They were attacked by the Governor's guys. We couldn't just leave them." The older guy stared at Aubrey while he listened, blue eyes never leaving the soldier.

Red hung her head a bit. "I mean... we don't have to take them back or anything... but we just couldn't leave them out there. You know what the Governor does to women," her voice cracked slightly and it was enough to pull the older man's attention back to her, his expression softening.

"And the soldier's pretty fucked up, too," the Asian added as his hand reached for Red for comfort.

The older man, who looked in his late early 30's, shook his head and spoke in a harsh whisper. "This is the third time you've put me in this position. We can't care for these people! We can barely take care of our own!"

He stepped forward and addressed Aubrey and her group. "Look... they didn't wan to see ya guys die, so they risked their lives to save you. but, we can't take ya back with us."

Aubrey just looked at the older man, whose piercing blue eyes bore right into her grey. Dark hair hung messily around down his forehead and over the tips of his ears and there was a little stubble of hair on his chin and jaw.

Her tongue was stiff and dry and her scalp was tingling from the hard hit with the cement.

Angela tried to speak up when she saw that Aubrey was barely holding onto consciousness. "But..."

"Ma'am, we have no room for newcomers. We're overcrowded as it is, and we certainly don't have the s'pplies to take care of ya. We're barely getting by ourselves. I know it sounds harsh, but I gotta think of my group first." The older man turned back towards the pickup truck and SUV and spoke through clenched teeth, clearly not happy with the situation they were in. "Give 'em your canteens and whatever food we brought. We gathered enough from this area that we need for our place."

Aubrey cleared her throat and fought to think clearly. "How many people do you have in your group?"

The older man stopped and turned. He eyed Aubrey up and down, unsure. "That's none of your Goddamn business."

"Are you the leader of the group?" Aubrey countered.

The man crossed his arms as his crossbow hung off his shoulder. "Right now, I speak for him."

Aubrey smiled weakly. "I'm pretty sure he'll want to meet me."

**Soooooooo? What did you think?**

**Please review!**


	6. Chapter 5

**Thank you for the reviews! Off to the next chapter! **

**Chapter 5**

The man just chuckled dryly. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he won't."

Aubrey laughed along with him, not because anything was funny, but because it was the exact opposite of what the man was expecting. "You always send your people out to tangle with groups of raiders with nothing but police issue revolver and a couple of Molotov cocktails?"

The man's mocking chuckling tapered off and he got serious. "We've got plenty of weapons. Don't think we ain't prepared."

"Hmm." Aubrey looked thoughtful. She continued to speak, thinking in the back of her mind that she hoped her words were making sense. "Of course you would say that to me. I'm an outsider and you don't want to let on that ten guys with assault rifles could take your entire operation over. Don't worry, that's not us. But what do you have back at the base? A few shotguns? A few hunting rifles? Mix-and-match ammunition? With a few other things from a police station? Maybe a couple hundred rounds total?"

The man was silent now, his face made of stone. Before the man could interrupt, Aubrey pressed on. "You already admitted that you don't have any extra food or water, but I think maybe you don't have any at all, or at least not enough to get you more than a few weeks down the road. I figure you wouldn't be sending two outgunned people into a war zone unless things were pretty desperate." Aubrey raised her eyebrows. "Should I go on? Any medical supplies to speak of? Of course not. Who has medical supplies when you're just trying to find your next meal and not get killed or infected. Any basic communications systems? I think if you had them, your two peoples would have been using them to speak with you."

"Just shut the fuck up," the man said quietly. "If ya try to fuck with us, I will personally find ya and rip your fucking guts out." The threat was a dark promise and Aubrey knew well enough that he could carry out that violence if needed.

But she only held up her hands and blinked to clear her rapidly fading vision. "I'm not here to hurt anyone. I'm here to help. I can get you access to everything you need. Guns, ammo, food, water, medical supplies. You name it. But whether you accept my help or not is up to you. Me and my group will continue to survive like we have been, and eventually we will encounter a group of survivors that wants our help and they will graciously receive everything I have to offer. Too bad it won't be you guys."

"Yeah," the man shook his head as his tone was sarcastic. "Too bad."

"Look," interrupted the Asian, no doubt seeing that the conversation was starting to go south. "I understand the desperate situation you find yourselves in, but I've heard people promise all kinds of things just to get some food and water."

Aubrey could tell the others were waffling on this decision, or they wouldn't be defending it.

"Then don't give us anything. Blindfold us, tie us up, and don't even take us into your camp. Just let me speak with whoever is in charge. If he doesn't like what I have to say, you can kick us to the curb, and you didn't lose a thing."

The blue eyed man stared at her for a long time with an icy glare.

"Come on, Daryl..." the red haired woman prodded. "It can't hurt. And she needs to see Hershel."

Daryl took another moment just to make it clear that he had come to his decision on his own and not from the prodding of his underlings. "Fine." He pointed a finger at Aubrey. "But ya'll getting blindfolded and tied up until we figure out what's going on."

* * *

Aubrey maintained consciousness for perhaps another two minutes. Getting blindfolded and tied up and placed in the back of the pickup truck with the many supplies their group had gathered was hazy. All she knew was that the kids, Angela and Grimm were in the SUV. She on the other hand had somehow managed to piss off the leader, Daryl, who refused to give her the comforts of the inside car. After that she was in a dark, nonsensical dreamland. She was on a roller coaster that wouldn't stop going down. It just kept plummeting and everyone on it was trying to get out. One by one, their safety harnesses failed and they went flying out of the coaster, screaming as they floated off into space. Eventually it was only Aubrey riding that lonely roller coaster to oblivion. She woke up when the roller coaster slammed into the ground.

The pickup truck had hit a stiff bump and she'd banged her head on the bed of the truck. She could smell the rust and the dried leaves and dirt that caked the truck bed, but none of it made sense to her. Then she quickly lost consciousness again.

In the brief moments when she was awake, she desperately tried to twist around to feel and make sure that the GPS device was still in her cargo pocket. She thought it was. But she wanted to put her hands on it. The pain of the cuts in her back made the twisting movement difficult, and she never quite succeeded in getting her hand in the pocket. After the smell of the truck bed, the next thing Aubrey remembered was standing up. She couldn't see anything. It was dark as midnight, but she could feel warm sun on her face. Someone was angry, but she was fairly certain they were not angry with her. The woman felt strong hands gripping her arms and holding her up which she was glad, because her legs felt rubbery, and she knew that if the hands were not there, she would fall.

Vaguely she wondered if this was another dream.

"Jesus Christ, Dayrl!" The angry voice said. "Did you have to blindfold them? This girl's half dead anyway. Hershel! Hershel!" This was a new voice, slightly stronger than the others, Aubrey thought.

"Where the hell did he go?"

"He was right behind me."

"Someone fucking get Hershel."

"He's right here, he's right here."

"Fuckin-A, Daryl, did you do this?"

"No! I think the Governor's fucking guys did it to her." The man snapped angrily.

The Captain opened her mouth but her throat was dry and scratchy.

"What? You gotta speak up, miss." This was another male's voice now, only more calm and soothing.

"I just got scraped by nails... Angela and Sara are... dehydrated... Duane too."

Hershel spoke again. "Glenn, get the lady and the two kids into my room. And someone help me with this girl." To Aubrey, "Hey, miss... You say you got scratched by nails? Can you tell me how that happened?"

"Window," Aubrey responded. There was a brief moment of silence and she felt the hands pulling her forward. She tried to move her feet, and found her knees weak. The young soldier was thankful for whoever was holding her up.

"Seriously," Hershel said to someone else. "Can we take the blindfold off? Are we done with this Guantanamo stuff? Thank you."

The world was suddenly very bright. Aubrey squinted. When her blurry vision cleared, she tried to focus on the surroundings for a moment and figure out where the hell she was. She could see that there was gravel under her feet. There were several large vehicles parked around her, a few beat up old pickups, like the one the Asian guy had been in. Behind the vehicles, Aubrey could see some curious faces staring at her. She looked straight ahead and saw what appeared to be their destination: a large building that looked like….

"A prison?" She said under her breath.

"God Damn it," came a familiar not so pleased voice beside her. Looking over she recognized the man known as Daryl holding her up as they headed to the inside of the giant fortress. "I didn't fucking want her to know where we were!"

"So what happened to you?" the man she assumed was Hershel asked instead of responding to the angrier man.

Aubrey turned to the sound of the voice and found an older looking man looking up at her. The man was probably no more than 5'7", and healthy for the most part. He had snowy-looking hair and beard, and perched on a prominent nose, he wore a pair of prescription glasses that bore some evidence of hard times: the lenses were both scratched and the frame was held together with duct tape on one side. What caught her attention however was the fact he had one leg and a crutch that supported him. Someone spoke up for Aubrey.

It was the red haired lady. "She was trapped in one of the condos, so she kicked open one of the boarded windows, but she could only get it partially open, so she had to squeeze through and the nails from the board scratched the shit out of her."

"Ah." Hershel peered around Aubrey and Daryl, who shifted her none to gently, to view her back.

"Yeah, that's more than 'scratched' and I hope to God they weren't rusty because I'm afraid I don't have anything to give you if you develop tetanus."

Aubrey just nodded.

With Hershel leading them, Aubrey and Daryl, who was supporting her, turned the corner into the open end of the prison. The man next to her reached a hand around her waist and held her arm over his shoulder while he slowly allowed her to take some steps down into the room. Though he was a bit of a jerk, she appreciated that he was starting to be a little gentler to her.

"A lil faster or I'll carry your ass," he mumbled to her.

Aubrey rolled her eyes, a habit she had been broken of in boot camp long ago, and resisted elbowing him. _Maybe he was still a jerk._

Below in the large room she could see scant medical supplies, but she figured by the blood-stained sheets and the smell of disinfectant that this was a medical station. Angela, Sara, Grimm and Duane were sitting on a few crates and a woman, Aubrey guessed about college aged, was handing out bottles of water. The bottles were a mismatched collection, and obviously had been refilled and used many times, she noted, as Daryl guided her to a bed with a stained sheet on it.

"Lay her on her left side," Hershel said. "Her left side... Her left side, Daryl!"

"Workin' on it!" Daryl snapped back.

Aubrey kept squinting her eyes because the pain was now coming in long, fiery bursts that started in her side and lower back then radiated out. As soon as she rested her head on the mattress, she felt Hershel pulling the ripped and bloody clothing away from her flesh and snipping through it with a pair of medical shears. The entire time he snipped away, he made disapproving noises and she assumed her injuries were worse than Hershel had believed.

When Aubrey realized Hershel was in the process of cutting through her pants, her hand shot out and touched her cargo pocket. She felt the elder man jerk back but she ignored it as she thrust her hand into the pocket and felt the plastic casing of the GPS device. She wrapped her fingers around it and removed it, resisting a sigh of relief. The light blonde haired woman tried to take it, but Aubrey wouldn't release the vice grip.

"No one touches this," she mumbled under her breath. With her clothes cut through and removed, Aubrey sat naked on the bed with only her black bra and underwear and felt chills coming on. She felt fleetingly embarrassed about being half naked in front of strangers, and especially Angela and the kids, but mostly she wondered if Hershel had the medical supplies necessary to patch her up. She couldn't imagine that the bleeding was so bad she could die from it, but she supposed infection was a good possibility.

"Beth, I need you," Hershel called.

Aubrey opened her eyes long enough to see the college-aged girl that had been tending to Angela and the kids come running over.

Hershel spoke to her. "Get me one of those towels, and I'm going to need some water for her. And when you get done with that I'm going to need my suturing kit."

"Be right back," she said, and twirled around to get what Hershel requested.

To Aubrey, he spoke a little softer. "Alright, here's the situation. Your scratches are more like lacerations. In a couple of places, they've cut into muscle tissue, so I'm kind of surprised you're able to stand upright. The good news is that I have the supplies to suture you up and hopefully keep you from getting infected. The bad news is that I don't have anything in the way of anesthetic, and it's gonna take me about an hour, maybe even two hours, to finish stitching you up. So the next two hours of your life will suck, but maybe you'll be lucky and pass out pretty soon."

The young Captain heard Beth return with the requested items.

"Before you pass out," Hershel continued, "You should drink as much of this water as you can. You lost a lot of blood. Not enough to be concerned with, but you need to hydrate. I'll see if we can't get you some juice or something... Beth! Juice?"

Aubrey opened her slate grey eyes to see if Beth was there, but she was out of her field of vision.

"Okay...' no' on the juice. Sorry, Miss. We're just about tapped out of everything."

Tension filled her sore muscles but she managed to nod and pressed her face into the mattress. "Do what you gotta do."

"Good girl," Hershel encouraged.

Aubrey lay on her side while the doctor of the group cleaned the wounds. The older physician used a large syringe filled with sterile water to irrigate the wounds and clean out all the pieces of dirt that had been trapped in the wound while she had evaded being shot to death. After a thorough cleaning, he patted the wounds dry. By then, Aubrey had finished her second bottle of water. She felt the doctor's hands leave her back and she could hear him working with something behind her, so she concluded it would be the sound of him threading sutures and getting ready to stitch her back up.

From Aubrey's medical training, she knew that Hershel would have to stitch the severed muscle tissue first, and then the skin. This was double the pain for her, but she shared the man's hope that she would pass out before long.

Hershel sighed behind her. "Okay. You ready?"

Aubrey nodded once again and grabbed a fistful of white bed sheets. Hershel turned out to be right. Aubrey passed out in no time.

* * *

"Someone want to tell me what the Hell is going on here?" The question was clearly a demand from the man who watched as Michonne, Glenn and Daryl came in through their cell block. Carol stood behind Rick who was very close to exploding at this point. "Where is Maggie?"

"She's with the newcomers," Glenn explained simply but his slight nervousness edged his voice.

"And why do we have newcomers? You know we have too much to risk to allow anyone to come here," he snapped but took a breath as his little girl gurgled before going back to sleep in Carol's arms. "How do you know they aren't a threat?"

"We don't but I'm sure they can't do much harm to us," Daryl said shortly. If anyone was able to talk on level with Rick when he was stressed it was him.

"How many?"

"4 and a dog."

"2 women and 2 kids," Michonne added calmly from the side where she took a seat at the bench.

Rick seemed a little taken aback by the fact there were no men with them but decided to ask, "And are their others with them?"

She only shook her head. "They were on their own when the Governor attacked, Daryl and me managed to get back to the vehicles right before Glenn and Maggie. They were the ones that found them."

"One is with the military… or at least is wearing the uniform-probably stole it from some dead guy," Daryl scoffed and set his cross bow down by his legs against the wall.

Glenn shot him a disapproving look. "No. The mother and kids had called her Captain. They told us she had rescued them when we were in the Condo."

Daryl only shrugged. "Doesn't mean shit to me."

"Wait-Wait-Wait," Rick interrupted in a lower tone. He raised his hands out before pinching the bridge of his nose, feeling a migrane start. Blue eyes looked up to the three people in his group with raised brows creasing his forehead. "The Governor was there? He attacked you?"

"He…" Glenn thought about his words for a moment, replaying the day in his mind. "His group had attacked them. We had no problems getting supplies and clearing a place to stay the night. Only a few walkers here and there. But before we were leaving, we heard gunfire a couple blocks from us. That's when we crossed paths and saw the Governor's men trying to kill the Captain lady."

"I can't say I blame him," Daryl mumbled under his breath but earned a glare from Glenn and Michonne. Cerulean eyes narrowed back before he scoffed and picked up his bow before walking out with a final "whatever."

Rick's eyes lingered a little longer where Daryl disappeared from but kept the question back for later. Right now he needed to find out more information on the situation at hand. "Did you get supplies?"

"Food, some drinks, and clothing," Michonne recited.

"A bbq pit and whatever we could find from a pharmacy. Just pills though and some more baby formula and diapers."

Risking a sigh of relief, he nodded but before he could give them thanks, the door opened up to reveal Maggie and a blonde woman in her late 30's followed by two children.

Rick's attention went towards the children until his eyes landed on the young boy standing nervously next to the little girl as his eyes took in the large prison walls of the cell block and bars on the windows.

"D-Duane?"

Dark eyes zeroed in on the voice that called him before widening. "Mr. Grimes? Is that… I thought.."

Rick was to the boy faster then he realized was possible and kneeled before him with a hand on his shoulder. "Duane… How did you get here? Are you hurt? Where's your father?"

Duane's dark eyes glazed slightly as he looked to the floor "He's…" A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed while squeezing his eyes shut to keep the images away. The weight of the watch on his wrist was heavier then he remembered but he ignored it as the light hand clenched his and Angela gave him a forced smile that reminded him of Aubrey.

_You're a man in my book, kid_.

Looking up he saw that Rick had seemed to come to the conclusion already with his eyes wide and a worried crease on his forehead. "He's gone," the young boy said shortly. "Aubrey saved me before the bad guys could get me."

That seemed to shock Rick back from his daze and he shook his head. "I'm so sorry, Duane. You are safe now, understand. You are here and you are safe."

"What about the others?" Duane asked calmly; A little too calmly after the explanation that his father was murdered.

Rick sighed and looked up to Angela who bit her bottom lip nervously. "Please…Please, just for a little while…"

Rich looked to Carol who had said nothing during the exchange then looked to Maggie who watched back with interest. "Where's Daryl?"

Maggie only shrugged before giving the best answer she had. "He said he was going to check the fence. I think he needed a walk."

He only nodded and headed out the door, mumbling about how he needed to have a talk.

* * *

When Aubrey came to, she didn't recall the details of her dreams, but they left her with an uneasy feeling that clogged her veins and sickened the pit of her stomach. Her mind was full of flashed images of violence and gore and inhumanity and she could still feel the GPS device held tightly in her hands.

Good.

They hadn't taken it from her. She opened her eyes and saw she was still lying on the bed in Hershel's little medical room. She felt weak and shaky, but lifted herself up onto one elbow so she could look around. The movement sent splitting pain across her back. It wasn't until Aubrey was sitting up that she realized someone was standing at the foot of her bed.

It was a broad man with a dark, close shaved beard. He wore a dirty old Sherriff shirt and a pair of old worn denim jeans. What Aubrey thought looked like a 1911 pistol hung in a leather shoulder holster under the man's left arm. The man with the beard stared at Aubrey for a long moment and then nodded.

"Can you stand?"

Aubrey didn't answer because she hadn't tried. She swung her legs out of the bed and prepared to heave herself up. The man with the beard smiled. "Don't get up. Hershel said you need to rest. Just curious if you could stand."

Aubrey relaxed back onto her elbow, trying not to grimace too much from the pain. "Thanks for patching me up. I know resources are scarce."

"They are." The man grabbed a metal folding chair from a desk with a lit propane lamp burning on it that was the sole source of illumination in the room. It wasn't until that moment that Aubrey realized it must be dark out. She wondered how long she'd slept. "You can call me Rick. I'm kinda the de facto leader of this little operation."

"Okay, Rick. Aubrey Thomson."

"Mm-hm." Rick relaxed in the chair, clearly not really caring much for her at that moment. "I understand that the arrangement you had with Daryl was that you wouldn't receive any care until you'd sold me on whatever you're trying to promote. He didn't give me many details. And you and your group have also received the food, water, and medical care that we can offer, meager as it is. We've done more than kept up our end of the deal. So... what is it that you claim you can do for us?"

Aubrey rubbed her eyes and tried to clear her foggy mind so she could speak intelligently. "Yeah... uh..."

Rick let out a big sigh. "It's okay." He sounded disappointed. "We get this a lot lately. Food and water are hard to come by, so people will act like they have it just to seek refuge here when they really don't. Just come clean with me and you and your group can leave with our blessing." The truth lingered between them that he rather shoot her then ever allow her to walk out freely. She understood where he was coming from though.

Aubrey managed a tight smile. "Sir, I'm not running any con game on you for some sutures and a few bottles of water. What is it that your people need?"

Rick didn't answer immediately. He spoke slowly. "I'm going to be frank with you, I have no reason to trust you. And explaining to you what we lack also tells you where we are weakest. That isn't information I will readily give out to strangers, and honestly, when you ask those questions, it makes me a little _uncomfortable_."

She pursed her lips. "I understand."

"Perhaps if you can explain to me how you came across these alleged supplies, I would be more inclined to believe you. Because right now the thought of anyone having access to some sort of cache seems like a fairy tale."

So Aubrey told him everything. She began by explaining her position as a member of Project Hometown, and what that entailed, and how she came to be in possession of several large caches that could supply a small army with everything from boots to bullets to bandages. She explained in detail that the caches were kept in underground bunkers, similar to the one she had come from, and that the access points for these bunkers were hidden, their hatches sealed and locked so that only someone with the proper clearance could find and access them. She left out the specifics of her GPS and the data it contained.

When she finished, Rick looked at her with eyebrows knit and arms crossed over his broad chest. While he didn't look entirely convinced, he also didn't look incredulous. Aubrey hoped that the details she had given would lend her story the ring of truth necessary to convince Rick to trust her. Aubrey continued on.

"Rick, I've got a job to do. I know it's difficult to believe that the United States government still exists, albeit on a very small scale, but we're here to rebuild. I'm not asking anything of you. And you know you can't refuse what I have to offer. I know you don't want to trust a stranger, but you have to understand that this cannot go on. You and your group won't survive the winter, scavenging for scraps. We have to start rebuilding and we have to start now."

Rick sat without moving, and his expression did not change. Aubrey had finished talking. There was nothing further to say. After a long pause, Rick finally let out a deep breath.

"Okay. How can we work this? What are you proposing?"

"Quid pro quo. I need you to answer some questions for me."

Rick looked like he was in pain for a brief moment. "Fine. Ask away."

"First of all, where are we?"

"Well… The people here have come to call it Camp Ryder. Why? I'm not sure. Seems to make the people from Woodbury feel better to have a name to this place."

"How many people do you have living here?"

"Fifty-eight by my last count." Rick sounded like he thought about that number quite often.

Aubrey considered for a brief moment. "Okay. How many of those fifty-eight are capable of fighting?"

Rick sighed. "Twenty, if that."

"What about guns?"

"A few deer rifles, couple hunting shotguns, and some pistols. Two of the pistols are .22, so they aren't much good for killing anything accept small game. We take 'em hunting every once in a while."

"I'm assuming ammunition is low?"

Rick nodded. "That would be correct. And we have Molotov cocktails. We got lots of those made up. Found a recyclables truck last week with a shit-ton of glass bottles in it. It also had several gallons of diesel fuel, and none of our vehicles run on diesel, so we made the cocktails."

Aubrey closed her eyes, as though trying to build a mental picture.

"Tell me about the building we're in, defense-wise."

Rick leaned forward in his chair. "Big cement building like any prison. Best we could find. Only two entry and exit points, besides the cargo bay doors, which we managed to weld shut and entrances in the other cell blocks that aren't used are barricaded. There's a fence all around the perimeter of the compound that we have watched every hour. We also have repaired the holes along the fence. Not anything fancy. Still, it keeps the Walkers out."

"But not a sane human who wants in."

Rick shook his head. "We patrol the fence line as often as we can, but we're undermanned, and even if we caught someone breaking in, I'm not sure we'd have the firepower to stop them, at this time."

"Has anyone attempted to attack you?"

"Only the Governor and his men." Rick scratched at his beard. "We've had a few curious people drive down the dirt road to our main gate that we've turned away with a few rifle rounds. But if someone was determined to get in, we couldn't stop them unless we knew it was coming like last time."

Aubrey opened her eyes. "Have you blockaded the driveway?"

Rick looked confused. "No... we use it."

"You need to find another way in and out of the gate. The driveway's too obvious and you're going to continue to get visitors, and it also makes it easy for an attacking force. Couple trees across the roadway won't stop someone on foot, but it'll stop a vehicle for sure."

Rick looked thoughtful. "Daryl and the others have been using the alley cut through the woods for the power lines to get through to the main road without being seen. I suppose everyone can use that." Rick aimed his stare back at Aubrey. "So where's all this going?"

"Just trying to get a feel for what we'll need."

"You mean your supplies?" Rick snorted. "We can worry about extra stuff later. Right now we need food, water, and guns. Medicine is a close fourth, although I'm sure Hershel would disagree."

Aubrey grimaced. "Multiple trips at this point in time is a bit more of an endeavor than we should risk. You have to understand that my caches are local, but the way things are out there, a few miles might as well be a few hundred."

Rick smiled humorlessly. "You are using a lot of 'we' statements. I'm getting the feeling that you're not just going to borrow one of our trucks and come back with a bumper crop of supplies."

Aubrey looked Rick straight in the eye. "With all due respect, me going out alone at this point in time would essentially be suicide. 48 hours ago, you would not have heard those words come out of my mouth, but I've got a little more wisdom, and a lot fewer weapons. I'm going to need a team to go with me."

"Okay." Rick bridged his fingers in front of his face and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I'm not saying that I'm cool with that, but let's say you get this 'team.' What happens then?"

"Well," Aubrey took a breath. "We'd need at least three of your vehicles, preferably the ones that can hold the most cargo, and two men for each vehicle at the very least— one to drive and one to gun if things get tight. We can probably pack enough supplies into three vehicles to last us through the winter... hopefully."

Rick sighed. "Three vehicles, huh? Is this including medical supplies and guns and ammunition?"

"Food and water will take up a lot of space." Aubrey rubbed her temples. "So does ammunition. Food and water are number one, but I'm pretty sure I can fit a six-month supply into three vehicles. Then throw in some weapons, ammunition and maybe a little ordnance, and some medical equipment... yeah, we should be able to fit it in three. It'll be tight, though."

"You realize I don't make the decisions all by myself, right?" Rick asked as he stood up. "Two months ago you would not have heard those words coming from me but situations changed." Aubrey smiled at him which he returned before turning serious. At least he was warming up to her a bit.

"I take it you will propose this to a committee, then?" Aubrey felt a breeze seep into the room from the window and pulled the sheet up a little tighter.

"Pretty much."

"If it's a committee we're talking about, let's go for five vehicle and three people per."

Rick actually laughed. "I thought I knew everyone that lived here, but apparently you've been here longer than I thought."

Aubrey smiled and relaxed onto her side. "You forget, Rick. I'm US Air Force. I know how things work in committee."

Rick turned around and walked out. Over his shoulder, he said, "Rest up, Captain," and then turned the corner and exited the room through a door she hadn't noticed before.

As he left, Beth and Angela filed in. Beth was holding a tray with another bottle of water and a plastic bowl. She set the tray down in front of Aubrey. The bowl contained what looked like rice and black beans.

Beth smiled. "Father's orders: gotta get some food and water in you."

Aubrey accepted the tray with a nod, assuming Hershel was her father. "Thank you for helping us. You and your group have been more than kind to us already."

"Well," Beth helped Aubrey sit up in her bed and checked the bandages on her back. "We keep you alive, you keep us alive... that's the plan anyway."

Angela sat at the edge of Aubrey's bed. Her blood-stained and filthy clothes were gone and she now wore an old t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts. Both looked big for her, but they were clean. She also looked like she'd been able to wash up, and she looked much better. It was amazing what simple hygiene could do for morale.

Aubrey spoke around bites of rice and beans. "Looks like you got that shower you wanted."

Angela smiled. "Bucket of rainwater and a piece of a soap bar: the next best thing."

Beth excused herself and reiterated her desire for Aubrey to rest. The captain promised she would sleep more.

To Angela, she asked what time it was and discovered it was about 9: 30 p.m.

"How are Duane and Sara?" Aubrey asked.

Angela shrugged noncommittally.

"Did they get food and water?"

"Yes. Beth gave them plenty of water and a little bit of food. Duane ate fine and Grimm is with him, but Sara wasn't feeling well."

The brunette could see worry tightening Angela's face. "I'm sure she's fine."

Angela nodded but Aubrey could see tears in her eyes and she bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

The younger woman leaned forward and touched her arm. "It's not uncommon for dehydrated people to feel ill after drinking or eating."

"It's not that." Angela shook her head and tried to regain her composure with a sigh and a skyward gaze. "She's just... changed so much. If you'd have seen her 4 months ago, you wouldn't believe it was the same person. She's just gone through so much in such a small amount of time..." She trailed off.

Aubrey let a long moment of silence pass before speaking. "We've all changed, Angela. No one comes out the other side of something like this the same as they went into it. We're surviving through something that none of us expected and no one prepared for. But we're surviving. And that's what counts."

Angela didn't respond. She buried her face in her hands, looking ashamed of her tears, but Aubrey could see her shoulders rock slightly with sobs as they came and went, like waves buffeting a shore. Finally, she wiped her face off and looked at the young captain with red-rimmed eyes. "Sorry. You're right. And we have it better than most."

Aubrey nodded with an encouraging smile. "We'll make it."

Angela stood up. She turned to leave, but stopped and looked at Aubrey. "Honestly, do you think we'll survive?"

The soldier met her stare unflinchingly, though she took a second to consider the question before answering. Did she really think they had a chance? The survivability of the plague was almost nil. The projections for human casualties that she'd received in her mission brief were what could only be described as Biblical. Did she truly believe that she and some survivors could turn the tide of the infection, could fight back against brutal nature?

She nodded. "It's going to be a tough road, but we'll make it."

Angela accepted Aubrey's foretelling with a weak smile. Whether she really believed it, or accepted it simply because it was a more pleasant to believe in, Aubrey didn't know. For that matter, she had to ask the same question of herself.

She finished her rice and beans and her bottle of water. The food felt like a brick on her stomach, but the water helped soften it. She was still dehydrated, but at least she was recovering. She switched sides and lay down, careful not to pull at her stitches or mess up her dressings as she stared at the cement wall across from her and tried to construct plans that would help her and the Camp Ryder group survive, but she was tired and her thinking was muddy.

Eventually she fell into a dark sleep. It was full of sounds but she couldn't see, like she was staring into a black hole, but could hear everything around her. She heard the roar of an unstoppable fire and the cries for help of every victim it consumed. The cries were at first distinguishable from each other, but they steadily grew more numerous until they became one single, sustained note of panic and excruciating pain. The maddening sound of screaming turned into the throaty screech of the infected, and Aubrey thought to her dream-self, _who are the real victims in all of this? The infected, or the survivors?_

Gunfire startled her awake.

Her dreams had become reality.

* * *

**Thanks for the reviews!**

**Hope to see how many people are still with me! **

**Let me know what you guys think! **


	7. Chapter 6

**Thanks to all my followers and for those who review…. You guys are awesome! I appreciate you taking a few minutes to give me your thoughts! Thank you! **

**Ok so this is IMPORTANT: Walking Dead universe is having twists because frankly I get bored of the same mindless zombie killings when reading fics. Sorry but no real scary moments there… So I am mixing it all up here! **_**The virus is evolving!**_

**And YES I believe that Rick's group will be helping more people in the next season so that is why I have more people here in this story (plus more drama!) **

Chapter 6

_Who are the real victims in all of this? _

_The infected, or the survivors? _

Gunshots perforated the darkness of Aubrey's dreams, yanking her violently out of sleep. She sat upright on a cot in almost complete darkness, her sleep-blind eyes struggling to focus and make sense of what was going on around her. Half in and half out of sleep, the captain's mind conjured up the nearest memory of darkness and gunfire: the dim stairwell in the Simmons' house, the haze of cordite hanging in the air, the stench of the infected.

Her breath caught in her chest. Dread hammered at the back of her mind.

Something horrible had happened at the Simmons' house. Something terrible and irreversible...Duane's dad had been murdered! But no. That didn't make sense. Because wasn't Morgan already buried and laid to rest?

She had to shake her head to clear the images of the Simmons' house, and Duane alone in the woods. She knew they were false. This wasn't the Simmons' house. It was… someplace else. _Someplace safe_, she thought. But maybe not so safe anymore, because there was screaming and gunfire coming from outside. Another gunshot rang out, this time very close to her. Adrenaline pumped like a piston in her guts and her heart rate quickened.

_Slow down. Evaluate your situation. Try to remember. Try to remember what the fuck you're doing here._

She took a moment to look around and work through what she was seeing._ I am not in complete darkness, _as she'd first thought: a single gas lantern glowed dimly against dull, corrugated concrete walls. She was half naked, save for a thin white bed sheet that had been spread over her with only her bra and panties on.

She lay on a cot in what looked like a large room and her back was in excruciating pain, though she couldn't remember why. Her tongue felt thick and pasty and she had no weapons.

_Where's my damn rifle? _

From somewhere outside she heard Grimm howl. _Grimm!_ she thought, almost jumping off of the cot, but stopping herself as the sound of it reverberated and echoed. _That's not right. That doesn't sound like Grimm_. The howl tapered off into a throaty snarl that didn't sound much like a dog anymore. It was human. And with that thought, the rest came back with sudden and overpowering force.

She'd lost her rifle at Timber Creek. Someone named the Governor had ambushed them. She remembered crawling through a boarded window, nails carving through the flesh of her back. Red and Blue saving their asses with Molotov cocktails. Angela and Sara and Duane just barely making it to Camp Ryder... The survivors.

Camp Ryder.

Wasn't there a ten-foot-high fence around the compound? How the hell did the infected get inside? It was an infected she'd just heard, she was sure of it. But who was shooting at them? The questions all struck her brain in rapid succession. _I can't just lie here_, she thought. _I've got to move. _

She ripped the white sheets off of herself and stood, staggering through a flash of lightheadedness. The questions still rolled around in her head, but she couldn't answer them now. Most of her thoughts were still muddled, but two things were coming through with piercing clarity: she needed a weapon— anything would do better than her bare hands— and she needed to get out of the room.

Running on instinct, these desires became a white-hot need, as real to her as her need to breathe. That howl again, this time just outside the room… where the door was opened to the outside of the compound….

A shotgun boomed and the pellets struck the walls. Flashlights from outside played across the wall, casting the wavering shadow of a man running straight for Aubrey. The movements were unmistakably wild and animalistic. A short, sinewy form lurched around the corner of the metal door just in time for another blast of buckshot to scoop its legs out from under it like a rug had been pulled. The infected hit the ground hard on its back and attempted to stand again without any regard to its injuries. Its wide eyes glistened feverishly in the lamplight as its shredded right leg twitched about, pulled in different directions by rearranged muscle fibers. It collapsed with a hissing sound and began to drag itself toward Aubrey, leaving a thick trail of blood behind. Like a car with a faulty transmission, the captain's mind finally dropped into gear.

She lunged for the table with the medical equipment, though she wasn't sure what she was looking for, but if anything was to be a weapon, it would be something on the table. she swept her hands back and forth like a blind woman feeling in the dark, knocking over a metal tray with a few scalpels and forceps soaking in alcohol. The tray clattered to the ground and sent the instruments skittering across the floor.

She thought about diving for one of the scalpels, but it wouldn't bite deep, and given infected people's pension for not even registering flesh wounds, she decided she needed something with a little more stopping power. The brunette grabbed the heaviest looking object she could find— a big microscope that felt like it was solid metal. She spun towards the infected and found it nearly close enough to grasp her legs but she steadied herself and shouted in surprise, grabbing the microscope by the eyepiece with one hand and smashing it down as hard as she could on the head of the infected. The heavy base of the microscope made a wet cracking noise as it dented the skull.

The crazed man on the floor thrashed and drew in a loud, gasping breath. Its eyes turned skyward and it began to convulse violently. The sight of it soured Aubrey's stomach almost instantly. She stared, frozen, for several of her rapid heartbeats before swinging again. The bludgeon struck her attacker in the temple. Its eyeballs bulged and the top of the skull mashed into a strange, cone-like shape. Aubrey swallowed hard against gorge in the back of her throat. She dropped the microscope and took a faltering step back. The pain in her back, all but forgotten for those brief few seconds, suddenly spread over her body like she was soaked in kerosene and playing with matches. She staggered towards her cot, but didn't make it.

She lost her feet and planted her hands and knees on the floor as she felt her stomach suddenly reject whatever was inside of it. She felt the splatter on her arms and then hung her head, breathing hard and spitting.

Pounding footsteps behind her.

Aubrey turned towards the sound and lashed out with both fists.

"Hey! Whoa!"

Aubrey focused on the face, kneeling down next to her. A chiseled face with a man's close cut beard; a 1911 in one hand, the other gripping Aubrey by the shoulder and shaking her gently.

"Can you stand up?"

Aubrey wiped vomit from her lips, and searched her mind for this man's name. "Uh… Rick?"

"Yeah."

Aubrey became suddenly aware that she still had no clothes on. She stood up shakily, with Rick supporting her. "Can I get some pants?"

The tall man pointed towards the foot of the cot where a pile of clothing was folded neatly beside Aubrey's old Bates M6 boots.

"It was all we could rustle up for now."

Aubrey nodded and stepped to the cot, straddling her puddle of vomit— rice and beans, she remembered. It was a pair of athletic shorts and a green t-shirt with a yellow smiley face on the chest. It was a far cry from her trusted multicam pants and combat shirt, but at least she had her boots back. The harsh reality of her last four days had only strengthened her opinion that these were the best boots ever made. Inside one of the boots, she noticed someone had stashed her GPS device. It appeared they had either succeeded in removing it when she'd fallen asleep, or perhaps that Aubrey had dropped it and they had been kind enough to put it back for her.

Either way, finding it snug in her boot immediately increased her trust for these strangers. She'd made clear one simple wish and they'd abided by it.

At the entrance to the Medical room, a younger man appeared holding a big hunting shotgun. He was skinny, but he had a round childlike face, and longer unruly black hair. Aubrey recognized the Asian man from the day before. Despite his features, Aubrey guessed him to be about twenty 22-25 years old. As he entered, he looked first at Aubrey, then to Rick, then to the mess of what once was a human being on the floor.

"Holy shit…"

Aubrey pulled on the athletic shorts and spoke to Rick. "How'd they get in?"

"I guess they found a hole in the fence. Or made one somehow, that's the only thing I can think of." Turning to the young man, Rick said, "Glenn, give Captain Thomson your pistol."

Glenn pulled a pistol out of his back pocket and held it out towards Aubrey. It was a tiny pocket pistol that could fit in the palm of your hand, and essentially worthless on a moving target past a range of about twenty feet. Just as Aubrey was about to take it, Glenn jerked his hand back and looked at her suspiciously, an expression that didn't quite fit on his face. "I'm gonna get this back, right?"

Aubrey honestly didn't know, so she just looked to Rick for clarification. Rick shrugged back at her. "I'll get you something better when we have time."

"Then I guess you'll get this back," Aubrey said to Glenn and accepted the gun. She pulled the magazine out of the well. It was a .380 caliber with only four rounds left in the magazine, plus one in the chamber. She would have to get in close to use the thing effectively. Still, it was better than a microscope. She shoved the magazine back into the gun and stomped her feet into her boots. The GPS device she slipped into the pocket of her athletic shorts. Glenn pointed out to the darkness of Camp Ryder.

"I think we got most of them."

Rick just shook his head. "We don't know that. Get everyone in the square and in the cell blocks."

"Aight." Glenn spun on his heel and ran off into the night.

Rick looked Aubrey over. "You okay? Didn't get bit?"

She gave herself a quick once-over before answering. "Think I'm good."

"Let's get moving."

Aubrey followed the man out of the cargo container at a jog. "What's 'the square' and why is everyone going there?"

"This ain't the first time we've been attacked," Rick said, cryptically. "But it is the first time with this many people here."

She found herself just rolling with it, the way you roll with the nonsensical facts in a strange dream, simply accepting the unacceptable because there are no other options. Aubrey felt like she was about to understand, anyway and she was about to get a crash course in how Camp Ryder dealt with attacks. In a way, the Captain felt strangely at ease being the follower. Over the course of the four days, it wasn't just about her own survival, but the survival of everyone in her little group. Angela, Sara, Duane, and Grimm had all depended on her to survive. Now it appeared that Rick was the head honcho, the man with a plan, and the absence of responsibility was like dropping an eighty-pound rucksack off her shoulders. And Aubrey had to admit, while she didn't know Rick well enough to say she trusted him completely, the man had a rock-steady attitude about him. There was something hard and unbreakable inside of him, and Aubrey could respect that.

Outside of the Prison wall, she could see the stretch of gravel and dirt that made up the center of Camp Ryder, like some Main Street in an old western movie, but much narrower. To either side of the gravel stretch, the survivors had used anything and everything they could find to construct small shelters for themselves and their families. It reminded Aubrey of the shantytowns she'd seen in third world countries.

_Who am I kidding?_ She thought numbly. _This is a shantytown. And America is a third world country now._

Aubrey noticed that the shantytown was beginning to churn with bodies, like an anthill after you scuff the top layer off. People in raggedy clothes were emerging out of cars and shacks and tents. Everyone carried flashlights or lanterns in one hand and a weapon in the other. A few had firearms, but mostly it was axes, shovels, crowbars, and baseball bats. It felt like a lynch mob. The townspeople heading out to find Frankenstein's monster. They ran past Aubrey and Rick, towards the center of Camp Ryder where a large but shallow pit had been dug and lined with bricks and stones. A fire pit perhaps? It appeared to be full of ash.

Aubrey guessed correctly that this was "the square" at the sight of two cell blocks on either side and a large wall along the backside. Above there was a overhang bridge that connected the two buildings where a few people with guns took shelter behind wood pallets looking over the crowd.

Suddenly remembering something, Aubrey stopped and began craning her neck around, trying to see through the jostling crowd and the darkness. To Rick, she spoke with a measure of urgency: "Where's Angela and the kids?"

Rick motioned for her to keep walking. "Glenn is telling everyone to gather in the square. They'll be there." As they walked, Rick snatched an axe handle from where it was leaning up against the cement wall. It was thinner towards the base of the handle and thicker towards the top where the metal axe-head was missing, which made it perfectly weighted for a striking weapon.

"Carl!" Rick yelled. A younger boy that she had not yet seen before in the growing crowd of people looked up. "Captain Thomson is borrowing your axe handle. And get your ass inside the cell block now!"

The boy tossed a tired glare at Rick but left hurriedly to the doors, anger clear in his face.

The axe handle was pushed into Aubrey's arms. She noticed that someone had written on the handle in magic marker: **BRAIN BUSTER.**

_Cute. _

Aubrey cinched the drawstring of her shorts up tight and stuck the little pistol in her waistband. Rick stepped in front of the crowd and looked like he was hurriedly counting heads. Aubrey estimated about fifty, which was close to the number Rick had given her last night. As she looked out over the crowd, she could see a tangled mess of blonde hair on the other side of the crowd. In the glimmering lamplight, she could see Angela's face, etched in worry. As the crowd shifted, she glimpsed the two children, standing to either side of her and Duane holding Grimm's leash. A fear she hadn't realized she'd been harboring released its vice-grip on her stomach.

They were here with the group. They were relatively safe. For now.

Glenn ran up beside her and stopped to catch his breath for a brief second.

"Carol, Beth, and Hershel are inside with your little one. Carl was on his way into the cell block too… So I think that's everyone."

"Hopefully," Rick murmured.

"So…" Aubrey looked around at the gathered mass of people outside. She noticed that everyone had their backs to the fire pit and had placed their flashlights at their feet, creating a bright, noisy gathering. Aubrey was about to ask what the plan was, but suddenly managed to figure it out on her own. She turned so her back was also to the fire pit and got a solid grip on the axe-handle before she looked at Rick and shook her head. "I can't say I like this idea."

"Most of them are too stubborn to take the Cell Block we cleared for them and choose to stay outside instead. We have to make due until." Rick only shrugged as if that was a clear enough explanation and then shouted to the crowd. "Alright folks, call 'em when you see 'em!"

Aubrey saw stony faces, all etched in harsh light and deep shadows. Glimmering and fearful eyes stared out into the darkness. Weathered hands twisted tighter and tighter grips on an assortment of opportunistic weapons. Those with firearms were at the front, pointing their hunting shotguns and deer rifles out at the suspicious stillness. The quiet of the night felt forced. Like a breath taken and held for fear of someone hearing. Even the night birds and chirping crickets were conspicuously absent.

Aubrey shifted her weight and tried to focus on anything that lay beyond the ring of light created by the dozens of flashlights. The silence stretched uncomfortably.

Someone whispered, "Why aren't they attacking?"

And another, "This is weird."

And still another, "Are you sure there are more?"

Aubrey recognized Grimm bark that suddenly shattered through the night like a needle through a balloon.

Then a shout: "I see movement!"

The group collectively tensed.

"Over by the trash bins!" Heads turned, everyone simultaneously spinning in the same direction. Aubrey followed suit because she didn't know where the "trash bins" were. She saw a collection of old steel garbage containers; several of them were filled with the monumental amount of trash that came from refugees all jam packed in and living together. In the murky shadows of the trash bins, Aubrey strained to see the movement. A couple of the stronger flashlights probed the darkness, but didn't reveal anything. The darkness was becoming disorienting. She realized she still wasn't thinking clearly, wasn't operating like normal.

The injury and the lack of food and water had taken more of a toll on her body than she'd thought, and she was only just beginning to recover. She kept repeating in her mind, _It's time to do work. It's time to do work._ Because that was what she used to tell her squad when they had to focus on completing a mission. _It's time to do work._

"There!" Someone shouted. A flash of movement between two trash bins. "I see it!"

A man with a deer rifle stepped forward a bit, but then hesitated. "Why isn't it coming at us?"

A chunk of trash suddenly shifted and that strange, unearthly screeching sound echoed out at the band of survivors. Aubrey couldn't see any details of the figure, but it ran straight at them. Just as it was within 25 yards of them it suddenly stopped and veered off. For a moment, it trotted along the edge of their lights, like a wolf probing a herd for weaknesses. The entire crowd seemed frozen and perplexed, like everyone was trying to figure out what the hell this one was doing.

"Shoot it!" Rick shouted, too far away to take the shot so he yelled at the man with the deer rifle. The rifle barked. Aubrey watched the dirt at the infected's feet explode.

Sympathetic gunfire followed the rifle shot as the tension became too much for some trigger fingers to handle. The night was abruptly engulfed in a volley of shotgun blasts and rifle fire. A scattershot of rounds caught its legs, then ripped into its shoulder, pummeled its chest and finally split its head open.

It wasn't until that moment when Aubrey watched the miserable thing collapse to the ground that a small, familiar voice cut into her brain, dissipating the fog of disorientation and reminding her of who she was, and how she had been trained.

_Watch your lane._

When learning to operate in a squad, each member would have a designated "lane of fire" to watch for enemies. If you were constantly checking to make sure that your buddy wasn't missing things in his lane, then you were probably missing things in your own lane. In other words: stop worrying about everyone else, and do what you know you're supposed to be doing. Squad Tactics 101.

_Watch your lane!_

Aubrey spun around just in time to see two claw-like hands latch onto a young teenage girl and yank her backwards. She watched the girl's dark hair fly up like it was suddenly in zero gravity as she was pulled to the ground. Her eyes locked onto Aubrey, and she saw a scared indignance, as though she was thinking, this isn't supposed to happen to me. The infected was an older female. It hunched over the younger girl and lunged for the neck. The girl let out a small cry and her hands came up, trying to block the infected's mouth from reaching her jugular.

The old woman bit down hard on the girl's wrist and Aubrey heard tendons snap. She managed to yell, "Behind us!" and then swung for the fences.

The axe-handle connected just behind the ear and left a deep hollow in the old woman's skull. It was only then that Aubrey realized there was a second infected. It lunged out of the darkness and seized hold of the teenage girl and began to backpedal, trying to drag her away from the crowd, looking at the other survivors and hissing aggressively. It pulled her by the shirt collar with one hand, and hammered the girl's face with the other, knocking her unconscious after two or three blows. Aubrey jumped forward and wound up for the swing.

A gun went off just to the right side of her head. The infected's throat exploded and it collapsed into a writhing ball. Aubrey instinctively recoiled from the noise of the gunshot so close to her and she clenched her jaw against the ringing in her ears. The crowd swarmed around her yanking the girl away from the infected and then bludgeoning it to death.

The young Captain looked to her right, where the gunshot had just come from, and saw a man that she recognized the day before as Rick's right hand man that had carried her to Hershel's medical room. His hair wild and eyes narrowed in disgust at the scene in front of him but he did not move, only looking to meet Aubrey's shocked eyes. Both stared at each other for a moment, not knowing what to think other then focus on the dread building up inside at the sudden events.

Suddenly a man rushed past Aubrey from the left, forcing the eye contact to break, and slid to his knees next to the girl and began to wail. The gathering erupted in confusion. Everyone was yelling and pressing forward to hover over the girl. A younger man in the crowd turned and looked at Aubrey with accusatory eyes, as though the Air Force Captain had done something wrong, as though it was her fault that the girl had been attacked.

In a flash of anger, Aubrey thought about using the axe-handle on him, too. But in the back of her mind she thought, _isn't it your fault? Shouldn't you have been paying attention? You're the professional here…_

Over it all she heard Rick yelling. The yell was drowned out by the man who had pushed Aubrey and now wailing: "Oh Jesus! Oh Fuck! Come on, baby! Wake up! I'm so sorry, baby!"

_The girl's father?_

Rick tried to push past with the rest of them but Aubrey was thinking a little bit clearer now, thinking about how those infected had hid from them and flanked them. There could be more. And if they didn't find where the intruders had come through, there would be more.

She reached out and caught Rick with a firm hand to his chest. "Are there any others?"

Seeming to ignore her, the broad man craned his neck to see the girl on the ground, then abruptly realized that Aubrey was speaking to him. "What?"

She pulled the man closer, speaking low so as not to be overheard and start a panic. "Are there any other infected?"

"Uh…" He tapped his Colt 1911 against his thigh and wiped his sweaty brow. "Shit. God. I don't know." The group was already scattering to the wind.

Hershel and Beth were pushing people out of the way and Hershel's normal gentle tone was now needling at the crowd: "Everyone get outta the way! Someone help me lift her!"

More people than necessary to carry a 120-pound girl stepped in. Everyone was trying to get a hand in to help and becoming more of a hindrance. The girl's father cradled her head in his arms as they moved her quickly towards the medical room.

Rick was staring at the girl again, so Aubrey shook him gently to get his attention.

"Grab a couple guys. We need to close whatever hole those fuckers came through and then do a perimeter sweep."

Rick seemed to gain his senses again. He reached out with a muscled arm, and grabbed a larger Black man who attempted to run past and join the crowd as they whisked the bitten girl off to Hershel's medical room.

"You're with us, Tyreese," Rick said, and when he spoke he had returned to his normal steady tone. "We gotta find where they're coming through the fence."

"But what about the girl, Kara?" Tyreese's eyes were wide and concerned.

Rick looked the taller, much larger man in the eye. "Let Hershel and Beth handle that. You can't do anything for her right now. We have other things to take care of. Now let's go."

The monster of a man didn't argue further. He nodded once and then both men turned towards Aubrey. He quickly surveyed his surroundings and made a decision. "We need a fourth..."

Aubrey spotted a familiar face and waved him over. "Hey! Borrow you for a second?" Glenn took a second to recognize her in the darkness, but after shining his light a few times in her face, he came running over, hand on his holstered .38 Special to keep it from flopping around on his belt that he obviously acquired moments ago.

"Yeah?"

Rick pointed to the fence behind the trash bins, as it was the closest section of fence to their current location. "We'll both start there. Run the fence line in opposite directions and see if we can find where the infected are getting through. If you find the hole, post up and secure it as best you can until we all meet back up."

Three heads nodded quickly.

"Aubrey, you and I will go clockwise. Tyreese and Glenn, you guys go counterclockwise." Aubrey and Rick took off for the fence at a trot and began walking briskly along it, inspecting the integrity of the chain links as they went.

Aubrey had been pleased to team up with him because she wanted a chance to talk to him. There were things about their most recent encounter that disturbed her and she wanted to get Rick's thoughts on it. While they walked, Aubrey spoke. "What happens to the girl now?"

"Kara?" Rick mumbled absently. "Hershel will amputate and hope for the best."

Aubrey almost stopped in her tracks as her brows furrowed in confusion. "Amputate? Are you kidding me?"

Rick shook his head, looking briefly run down. "No. The faster they cut Kara's arm off, the better chance she has of not contracting the virus. We figure it works about half the time, which is better than 100% chance of infection. Only problem is that most of the time the amputation goes septic. Or they lose too much blood." Rick swore bitterly. "We just don't have the medical equipment to save everyone. It's like the fucking Stone Age again. Like civil-war surgeons just hacking off limbs with saws and crossing their fingers."

Aubrey couldn't think of anything else to say except the image of Hershel hobbling after her when she arrived flashed in her mind. "Is that…Is that what happened to Hershel's…" she couldn't really finish the sentence. Amputation was something that always set this weird tingling through her veins just at the sight.

Rick didn't pause though and nodded. "Mmhmm… He was our first. We were clearing out this Prison when we first arrived and he had been bitten. He was going to die either way so we took the only risk we could to try to save him."

The concept of amputation to prevent bacterial infection through a bite or open wound seemed to be a reckless medical maneuver, but when faced with the certainty of turning into one of them, the amputation had a cold practicality.

Aubrey pressed on: "Did you notice anything about those last infected?"

Rick didn't answer immediately. He stalked along and painted his flashlight over the length of fence before them but found it to be secure. When he finally spoke, he seemed to be choosing his words carefully.

"I remember how the Walkers were a month ago." He stopped walking and turned to look at Aubrey. "They were disjointed and confused. Lost. They never attacked each other before like they attacked us. I don't know what the hell is going on or how it's happening so fast, but the groups are changing. Learning. And they're doing it quickly."

Aubrey pictured the dark shape darting out of the trash bins and circling the edge of the lamplight while they sat in their encirclement, weapons pointed out. The cold, blood-crusted talons dragging that young girl to the ground and the other trying to carry her off.

"Like a wolf pack," Aubrey said, almost more to herself than to Rick. "Adaptation. Evolution. It doesn't seem like they're mindlessly attacking any more. It seems like they're hunting us."

Rick stopped and looked Aubrey in the eyes. "Bullshit," he said.

The young woman shrugged. "Think about it. That's the first time you've ever seen them come from both directions. Usually they're in one solid group and they just charge you. This was different. It was like they were trying to distract us so the other two could get in close."

Rick didn't answer but pursed his lips. He just started walking along the fence line again. The truth was that the words were bitter. It was not an "ah-ha" moment, it was an "oh shit" moment. The infected were bad enough as a mindless herd. The thought of them in small packs, hunting them like prey, was a hard pill to swallow. But Aubrey wasn't willing to ignore the situation either.

"This is the first time we've seen them maneuver like that." She followed along with Rick while she spoke. "When the situation changes, your tactics need to change along with it. If they're getting smart enough to get past your chain link fence, we're going to need to think of something else to keep them out."

Rick shook his head fiercely. "Even a dog can dig himself under a fence. That doesn't mean anything. They're mindless shells of what once were human beings. They're just running on auto pilot now. There's no evolution in this." He sounded distraught, as though he were attempting to convince himself._ I reject your reality, and substitute my own. _

Aubrey decided not to push it. She just hoped Rick had other things on his mind and wasn't this unreceptive all the time. The brunette had to admit to herself that it was difficult to tell with the infected. Sometimes their actions seemed like the result of logical thought, and other times it just looked like instinct. Most of them appeared to be able to manipulate tools, but they weren't using them properly, they were simply using them as blunt objects to strike out with. Just because a monkey can strike somebody in the head with a wrench, doesn't mean it can fix your sink.

They all seemed to hold on to some rudimentary intelligence, but it also seemed to vary from individual to individual. Just as some were more aggressive than others, some were more intelligent than others. But then the question arose again, was it intelligence or instinct? Aubrey kept coming back to the example of a wolf pack. When a pack hunts, singles out the weakest prey, and then flanks it to take it down, is the success of their hunt based on a premeditated plan, or ingrained animal instinct?

A voice came hollering across the compound. "Rick!"

Rick and Aubrey both looked and saw Glenn running up, breathing heavily. "I think we found where they came in." He took a big gulp of air. His eyes darted back and forth, carrying grave meaning. "I think you should take a look at it."

Glenn turned on his heel and started jogging back across the compound. They followed behind him, their flashlights strobing up and down as they ran. Aubrey took a sidelong glance across the center of the compound and saw the crowd at the medical entrance being pushed out by a woman Aubrey didn't recognize. From inside the building Aubrey could hear screaming, high-pitched and wretched.

Hershel had begun the amputation.

"Right here." Glenn had stopped and was pointing. They turned the corner of a shanty made out of aluminum siding and blue tarp.

Aubrey and Rick looked forward as they slowed to a walk and approached what Glenn pointed at. Confusion passed over their faces followed by a deep, dreadful uncertainty. They looked at each other and then back at the object of their attention. An opening had been peeled back from the fence, from top to bottom. The chain-links had been pulled away and rolled up like two sides of a scroll. Only they weren't pushed inside, but pulled outwards and tucked in so neatly to create the man-sized breach in their defenses that it left little room for question about who or what had done this. It was then that Aubrey and Rick both noticed a low, husky voice, quietly intoning some strange narrative:

"_... but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves..." _

"What the fuck is that?" Rick glared and shot his flashlight towards the sound of the voice. The flashlight played around a bit and then found the culprit. Nestled in a patch of overgrown grass at the corner of the shack was a small black CD player, round and glistening like an insect's head, the two bulbous speakers stared up at them like compound eyes.

"_... the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible..." _

Tyreese moved swiftly forward, raising his foot as though to stomp the thing out of existence but Aubrey's hand shot out and grabbed him by his arm, hauling him backwards off balance with what little strength she had. He looked at her like he was about to turn that foot on the smaller woman, but then understanding dawned.

Aubrey nodded. "Might want to check that out real good before you go stomping around it. Depending on who put it there, it could be booby-trapped."

Behind the two, Rick managed a halfhearted smile. "That's why I keep you around." He gestured towards the CD player. "I'm guessing you have much more experience with booby-traps than I do. You tell me."

The voice, supremely ignorant of the circumstances, continued its droning_: "... the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake..."_

Aubrey gave the big man a humorless smirk and leaned forward with extreme caution. She shined the flashlight first around the immediate area of her feet, then lit up the patch of overgrown grass. When she saw nothing to alarm her she stepped forward and peered down into the nest of grass, working the flashlight around at different angles.

"_... the hunters who namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude..." _

Aubrey let out a long breath and relaxed a bit. Then she knelt down and stabbed the top of the CD player with her finger. The black cover popped open and the disembodied voice went silent. Underneath, a white disk spun madly at first, and then came to a gradual stop. Aubrey reached her hand in and plucked the CD from the tray, looking at the title and reading aloud:

"Moby Dick by Herman Mellville. It's an audiobook."

Rick's face was made of granite. "Hilarious."

Aubrey shook her head.

"I don't think it was a joke." Tyreese chimed in, pointing to the neatly clipped ends of the chain links. "Pretty sure someone cut their way through this... looks like bolt cutters."

Rick regarded the larger man with a dubious look, to which Tyreese responded, drably, "I wasn't always the upstanding citizen I am now."

"The Governor?" Glenn suggested.

Rick crossed his arms. "I don't see who else would be interested in fucking with us, and given our recent tiff, I think that's a pretty good deduction."

"Why not just attack us?" Gleen questioned bitterly.

Aubrey offered a possible answer. "Because a day attack is too easily defended and they know they can't be out in the woods at night because of the infected. So they use the infected. Cut a hole in the fence. Put a CD player with just enough volume to attract the infected, but not get noticed by us."

"Kind of clever if you think about it and it isn't the first time that basturd used Walkers against us." Rick stared grimly out at the dark woods. "Audiobook just sounds like some guy talking. Music would have caught our attention."

Everyone that had survived up to this point seemed to know that the infected had nearly superhuman hearing at night when they became more active. Aubrey had to assume that because of this, Camp Ryder enforced noise discipline at night. Even at the low volume it had been set, the CD player had probably been the loudest noise coming out of the camp, though it probably would have gone unnoticed by regular ears or dismissed as a quiet family discussion. Aubrey stood up and stepped to Rick's side.

"I think maybe you should tell me about this Governor."

Rick nodded, than pointed to Tyreese and Glenn. "You two patch up that fence. Only one of you working at a time, the other keep watch. Don't let anyone else sneak in. I'll send someone else down to help you."

Rick turned to Aubrey. "Walk with me."

* * *

The two walked through the darkness, their flashlights casting a dull glow off the ground before them and just barely illuminating their tired faces. Most everyone had gone back to their makeshift homes or for those willing, back into the cell blocks, but a few stragglers still made their way through the dark. Unlike the deep silence of early morning, there was still a whisper of excitement: quiet voices echoing out of wood and tin shacks, holding furtive conversations.

Aubrey had to wonder how many other infected were in the area to hear those barely audible whispers?

Sighing, she looked up at the sky and saw the faint glimmer of dawn to the east, or perhaps it was her imagination. It wasn't until you spent time outside of the comfort of civilization that you began to realize why people in ages past feared the night. The night was long, it was uncomfortable, and it was dangerous. The dawn marked the end of the dark misery and the return of warmth and safety.

"You know what time it is?" she looked briefly at Rick.

"About four in the morning." Aubrey felt her heart sink. The light to the east was just her imagination after all.

Dawn was two long hours away and there would be no sleeping after this. The pain in the Captain's back was beginning to catch up to her.

A dark figure strode up to them as they crossed the center of camp. All Aubrey could see was the figure's right side, illuminated by the cold blue light of an LED lantern. As the figure approached, it raised the lantern up to eye-level and Aubrey recognized the pursed face and the narrowed eyes, washed out and pale in the glow. The angle of the light cast shadows that made his face look weirdly severe.

Aubrey thought he remembered the others calling the man "Daryl." He was the one who had resisted bringing them back to camp, only to be the one to help her get Medical treatment when they had agreed she would get nothing. He was of average height, and probably average weight before he had been forced to ratchet down on his belt during these lean times. He was probably in his thirties or perhaps the hard times made him look older and he was in his late twenties? She couldn't be sure. He was roughly more built then Glenn, but taller, and his features more gaunt. While Glenn gave the impression of someone much younger, everything about Daryl was older, from the squint of his eyes to his confident-but-slight-cocky stride. There was something else there, too. Something in the tilt of his head, in the set of his jaw.

Daryl liked to fight.

Overall, his body language and his facial expression communicated to Aubrey that he was not always a pleasant person to be around.

"Rick." He nodded to his superior with respect then turned a somewhat disdainful eye on Aubrey. "Are you supposed to be up? I thought the old man wanted you recuperating."

Aubrey narrowed her eyes at his tone and was about to respond, but Rick cut her off, and she was grateful. She was too tired to argue.

With a dismissing wave of one dirt covered hand, Rick said, "Daryl, we have a problem. Captain Thomson is just helping me out, and then I will let her go straight back to bed." The man's cold silence said enough.

Aubrey quirked her eyebrows. "So is it Daryl or Mr…?"

"Daryl Dixon," he said with a grumble. "I don't give a damn what you call me."

Aubrey nodded, holding back a bitter comment. "Daryl it is then."

Rick led the trio towards the Prison building on the opposite end of the cell block away from the medical area. The larger structure towered over the shantytown like a castle amongst the villagers' mud huts. It was a two-story cement structure with very few windows that Aubrey could see. Purely industrial, with very little to beautify it.

This building would have to be their defense. It had a lot going for it. In addition to windows covered with bars and concrete walls, Aubrey could only see one entrance which was two steel doors flanked by narrow sidelights— too narrow for a man to squeeze through. The roof looked like it was easily accessible, and Aubrey imagined some sandbags and few machine gun nests up there could lay a pretty damn good field of fire on any attacking force. Infected or otherwise.

The Captain pointed up towards the big building. "What do you guys use it for?"

"When we first got here, we all lived inside," Rick explained. "We very rarely left out. The security of the fence was no big deal, because the building was our security. We welded the cargo-bay doors shut, which left only two sets of double doors to worry about— the ones you're looking at now, and another set on the opposite side. We had everyone in there, but it was only about ten-fifteen people."

They reached the double doors and Rick pushed them open. Aubrey noticed the smell first. It was the smell of the refugee camps outside and the smell of a homeless. It was sweating bodies and grimy clothes, exacerbated by the warm air. She could only imagine how much worse it smelled during the day.

Rick guided the three of them to the right and they began to ascend a metal staircase.

"After the shit officially hit the fan with the Governor and people of Woodbury, we started getting a steady trickle of survivors. We tried to take in only people that had something to contribute, but..." Rick trailed off. "It was tough. A lot of tough decisions had to be made. It was easier running everyone off then to spare a few when we could."

As they reached the top of the stairs, Aubrey spied a panel of glass to her right: a large window belonging to an office that overlooked the floor. In the dark window, she could see her reflection staring back at her and it almost stopped her in her tracks. She was thinner than she remembered; her neck and arms just bundles of taut cords with flesh stretched over them though her muscles still visible. Her once-tidy ponytail was slightly sideways and her bangs curved messily framing her face. She was shocked to discover that the once gentle set of her face had turned into higher cheek bones and her lips more defined which surprised her. She had always been envious of women with pronounced cheek bones that made their faces look longer and more sophisticated but never knew it was possible to obtain the lady like look. Her child-like roundness was gone and she barely recognized herself. She forced her face to relax, and there she could see some semblance of the person she remembered. But it was only a grim parody. That person didn't exist anymore.

Aubrey realized Rick was still speaking and tore her attention away from the harsh visage in the window, refocusing on the conversation.

"I've always believed that we shouldn't turn anyone away— more manpower, you know? But a lot of people don't agree with me." Rick opened the door to the small office overlooking the floor.

She supposed it had once housed a foreman or supervisor. Inside, it was sparsely furnished with a few folding chairs, a large desk, and a big cork-board with a county map pinned to it. Rick stepped behind the desk but didn't sit. He continued speaking as he stood there, fishing through one of the desk drawers.

"Even being selective, we eventually got too crowded for everyone to fit in the building, so we allowed people to start making their camps outside. Seeing that it was safe, some of the people that were living in here decided to move out too. You think it looks cramped now, you should have seen it before." Rick sighed. "Pretty soon, we'll have too many for that, and then we'll have some real problem-solving to do."

He finally found what he was looking for and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He smiled wanly at it, and gestured his two companions towards the folding chairs. "Have a seat."

Daryl had already plopped down ungracefully before the invite but Aubrey tried to not roll her eyes and sat in the chair facing the desk. Rick snagged the chair behind the desk and hauled it over to the front, so the three of them were positioned in a small circle. He took his seat with a sigh, adjusting the straps of his holster. He leaned back and unscrewed the cap off the whiskey. "Wish I could say it was good stuff, but it ain't." He took a swig and offered the bottle to Daryl, who accepted.

"So..." Aubrey tapped her fingers on her knee feeling slightly self conscious with her shorts and t-shirt on next to the two men. There was a long, awkward silence as she glanced at Daryl, who stared at the bottle in his hands.

Daryl seemed to take notice of the silence and looked up at Aubrey. For the second time she felt their eyes meet and a tense moment passed before he took a couple gulps of whiskey, breaking the eye connection. "Did we have a problem you were going to help us with?"

Aubrey wasn't sure if the question was genuine or sarcastic but her frown deepened nonetheless.

Rick leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Daryl, we found a hole cut in the fence. Someone had put a CD player on the ground, playing an audiobook to attract walkers. We think it was the Governor."

Daryl deflated with a single long sigh. He leaned back and finally took another swig of the whiskey with a violent grimace on his face. Then he passed the bottle to Aubrey who took it with a little hesitation.

The pause in her movement to take the bottle didn't escape Daryl's sharp eyes and he smirked mockingly that clearly said 'you think you can handle it?'.

Taking the bottle, she vaguely remembered first joining the Security Forces years ago and being one of very few women in the field. The men had always looked down on her and she was slightly pissed finding herself in the similar situation.

Daringly, she met his icey blue eyes and took a swig, letting the burning sensation set fire to her throat before easing. Her mouth wanted to twist against the bitter taste but she suppressed the grimace artfully. A smirk curled her lips as his fell ever so slightly.

"Yeah... the Governor." she smiled, unsurely. "What's the back-story on this guy?"

Daryl looked to Rick and seemed to be waiting for him to take the reigns.

"Uh-uh." Rick folded his arms. "You tell her. It's your brother that was with him."

**TaDaa! What do you think? **

**Next time: Daryl and Karen... Aubrey and Daryl... Oh wait... who summoned the Lynch Mob? **

**Ok so next week is my last week to update before I leave to boot camp. If you want 0-1 chapter (before I have a 3 month leave) then you can just read or not read. **

**If you want 2 chapters before I leave then I need a review… Nope, I'm not above bribing! :D **

**So please review :D**


	8. Chapter 7

**Warning- mature content at the beginning.**

Chapter 7

_A few week prior_

_He had seen her walking quietly through the shacks outside the prison walls. The only sound was the crunch of gravel beneath her feet as she stepped carefully through so as not to wake anyone or attract the Walkers. There were very few of them outside of the fence now and it had been a mystery as to why they were starting to leave the facility. _

_It wasn't like they knew they couldn't get in… Obviously they had gotten lucky a few times. _

_Shaking his head, he turned back from the view of the prison and looked out the tower window towards the dark forest stretched out below. He raised his crossbow and peered through the new scope he had strapped to it, gazing out through the shadows but finding nothing out of the ordinary. He dropped his crossbow from the ready position and let it hang from his shoulder as he sat down in the chair. _

"_Hey." The harsh whisper reached his ears through the dark and he rolled his eyes. _

"_What?" he asked back, none to nicely, refusing to get out of his chair._

"_Can I join you?"_

_A dirty hand came up and scratched his stubby chin. He thought about not answering for a moment but he knew the women at this camp would only continue to bother him then to take the hint. Before he could blatantly refuse, a mop of curls appeared into his vision as the woman came up the steps. She tossed him a quick smile before allowing herself into the tower. _

_Cerulean eyes glared at her for a moment and he contemplated leaving the tower to go to the next one, hopefully ditching the broad. _

_She stood with her back turned to him, so he knew it was a possibility to easily sneak away but he waited for a moment; curious as to why she was here in the first place. He had seen her before, wandering the prison walls and always wanting to tag along with his group. Rick would only toss an impatient look her direction but was relatively successful at ignoring her. Carol had explained a few times, that Karen, this tag-along mouse, had been very grateful for them rescuing her after the Governor tried to massacre the group that attacked the prison. _

_There was one thorn to this pretty little rose that stuck Daryl with enmity. This woman had helped in trying to take out his group, only to be outsmarted. Apparently she was trying to get on their good sides once again when it was apparent to everyone that it seemed Karen's previous fuck buddy thought she was disposable._

_Growing impatient with her presence, the rough man took a breath and got up, all too ready to leave the tower. _

"_Wait," her voice called. _

_Daryl paused, more out of curiosity and turned sideways to glare at her. "I ain't got all night, lady."_

_Dark eyes narrowed slightly but she only bit her lip, thinking of the words she had been playing in her mind. "I-uh…I just wanted to thank you…for saving me and taking me in. You didn't have to."_

"_It wasn't my decision," was his cold response with an added shrug. He took a step to leave again but she stopped him once again._

"_I know-it's just…"_

_He turned again to face her. _

"_I wanted to repay you," Karen added with a curve of her lips. She stepped forward until she was next to him, then standing in front. His blue eyes peered at her but the glare lessoned to that of suspicion. "I know Rick made the decision but you were the one that did most of the work… Shouldn't you be rewarded?" She stood on her toes and allowed her lips to brush his as she spoke the last part in a whisper. _

_For a moment, Daryl thought about allowing her to play her game, but he had one way of playing that she may not be ready for. Instead he pushed her back lightly. "Listen, I ain't interested-"_

"_Oh?" She stepped forward once again, though this time she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Are you and that woman, Carol involved after all?"_

"_No, now just shut up. I have work to do," he pushed her hand off of him. _

_Before he could step away, she pushed her lips into his and wrapped her arms around his neck. Daryl's grip on the crossbow slipped and there was a dull thud on the floor as she pulled his bottom lip in between her teeth and sucked. A growl emitted from his throat and he pushed her against the wall, ravishing her mouth with his tongue as he gave into his sexual urges. Damn he needed to get laid. _

_Her fingers wrapped expertly into his wild hair as she pushed his mouth harder with hers and a leg came up to wrap around his hip. He growled approval and his hands brought her other leg to wrap around him as he lifted her up. His body urges needed this… just needed release._

* * *

Aubrey eyed the plastic bottle in her hands as she waited for Daryl to collect himself. It was a fifth of whiskey; bottom shelf stuff, which was a shame, but Aubrey didn't want to offend. She took a sip and swallowed fast, trying to avoid letting the harsh liquid sit on her tongue for longer than necessary. She managed to get it down without too much of a grimace and passed the bottle on, then leaned back in her chair and looked at Daryl.

In the well-lit room, there was much more to see than just the harsh lines that his lantern had thrown on his face. Aubrey noted his dirty hands, blistered and torn up from hard work but also had that permanent, calloused thickness of a lifetime of manual labor. The wrinkles on his face that seemed unpleasant in the darkness now looked like old smile lines and laugh lines that had simply fallen into disuse. A scowl seemed to be his predominant expression now. Having the full picture, she realized it wasn't so much that Daryl Dixon was a naturally unpleasant person, but that he'd become unpleasant due to his circumstances. And really, who could blame him? Maybe he'd once been a happy. But now, in the harsh reality of the new world, he had to fit in, had to find his place, and most of all, had to survive. Daryl was in the process of turning into a colder, harder, more pragmatic version of himself.

He seemed to gather the story and then began speaking with a loud exhale. He explained what the Governor had in his possession, a large town with electricity and water. Just like the old ways. That he had somehow snapped during the time that Walkers started to overrun the country though he had hid it really well, considering. When he got to the part about Michonne stumbling upon his collection of heads and his infected daughter, she cringed but nodded.

From what she was hearing so far this Governor was pretty intense. The battle between the two groups and insight on what she was dealing with helped considerably to match what she had learned with training to real life scenarios. It didn't set well that she would need to figure out how to handle two groups of survivors that wanted to kill each other, and try to play peace keeper.

When Rick joined in, he explained one of the worst parts to her. That one of their own had gotten mixed with the wrong side and her feelings had told her to stay until it was too late. Poor Andrea. She sounded like her loss was what crippled Camp Rider group mentally.

Daryl straightened up in his chair and planted his hands on his knees. "Ever since then, he's been collecting other people like himself— criminals and lowlives— and running around pillaging everything and everyone. And that is why there is no love lost between us, and why I will put an arrow in his brain the next time I see 'em."

Aubrey raised her brow. She thought of the people that attacked them at the Simmons's house and later, burned her house to the ground. They had a Humvee, and the description was very similar to what Rick had explained in between Daryl's foul language. The thought put a flash of heat down her back.

"Any other group out there causing problems, or is it pretty much just this Governor?"

Rick fielded the question. "From what we can tell, if there were any separate groups, they've all been absorbed into the Governor's. We estimate he has about thirty men, but they're kind of scattered around the county. He usually only keeps ten or so with him."

Aubrey took a long moment to lean back in her chair, stare at the floor, and consider the ramifications of this new information. At first glance, the Governor was an enemy to be defeated. At second glance, he was the leader of another group of approximately thirty survivors. It seemed pretty obvious that Rick wanted the Governor and his group wiped off the face of the earth, but Aubrey had to consider what was best for her mission. Granted, given their previous actions, she didn't think they were very open to the concept of allying with him, but the only way to find out would be to talk to them. Aubrey kept those cards close to her chest.

Rick took a sip of harsh whiskey and shuddered. "Okay... now that we have our history lesson behind us, I need to steer this towards the meat of the conversation: the breach in the fence."

He capped the whiskey and set it behind him on his desk. Then he crossed his arms and allowed a sour expression to push through his bearded face. "Someone cut that fence up, and I need to know who and when."

Daryl puffed air and looked around the room, without much to say.

"Well," Aubrey looked between the two men. "I'm going to say it happened at night. Probably sometime within the last two hours."

"Okay..." Rick waited for elaboration.

"I can't imagine it taking the infected that long to track down the source of the noise. Even with their hearing at night, they would still have had to be pretty close by." Aubrey explained. "I think if we say it happened any earlier than maybe an hour or two, we're being unrealistic. In all likelihood, they were at the fence within minutes."

Rick looked skyward as though trying to figure something. "That doesn't make any sense. If it was placed recently, it would have been nighttime. The Governor's men would have had to travel through the woods at night, which kind of defeats the whole purpose."

"If I was them, I would have had someone set up in the woods before dark," Aubrey said. "Somewhere close to the fence, so when the time came, they could cross the distance without too much noise."

"They'd still have to get out," Rick argued. "And if you're sending in one man, why not send in twenty and take the place over?"

"Because no matter how quiet they are, twenty men will make more noise than one," Aubrey answered. "As for getting out after setting the trap, all they would have to do was run along the fence to the dirt road and they'd be home free."

Rick considered this, then looked to Daryl. "Who was on watch?"

"Sue and Stan," Daryl replied.

"You may want to speak to them," Rick put in.

Aubrey leaned forward. "How often do they check the fence? Once an hour? Once a half-hour?"

Daryl seemed to resent having to answer the woman's questions, but he squinted his eyes and did some reckoning in his head. "Takes about ten minutes to walk the perimeter, then they spend another ten or fifteen minutes on their sentry points... Yeah, probably between twenty and thirty minutes."

"Plenty of time to snip-snip and plant the talking box," Aubrey said. "Then run to the dirt road and make a good escape. May have had a car waiting out at the road. If they moved fast enough, they would have avoided the sentries and the infected."

Daryl seemed to be coming around to Aubrey's point of view. "At that point, there's no harm in running, even if it makes more noise-Acutally, it may have just increased their odds of attracting walkers to the area. The guy run'n doesn't care because he's 'bout to get in a car and drive away."

Rick took a breath to speak but someone started banging on the office door, causing the whole thing to rattle. Aubrey looked up and could see a dark figure standing on the walkway outside through the smokey glass. Rick let the breath out in a slow defeated huff and she got the feeling that Rick already knew what the person wanted, and it wasn't good.

"Come on in," Rick said, just loud enough to be heard. The door swung open and a boy's face on a large man's body stepped in. The big kid easily stood over six feet and probably weighed over 200 pounds. He wore dirty old overalls that made him look like a farm hand and wrung a tattered up baseball cap in his hands. His eyes were red and strained and his whole body shook.

"Uh... sir..." The kid looked at the floor. "We lost Kara. Doc tried, but..." The kid sobbed once then shamefacedly stared at the floor with his mouth closed tight.

A low, miserable noise came out of Daryl as he leaned back and set his gaze on the dingy ceiling tiles. He bared his teeth as though experiencing some deep physical pain but Aubrey knew all too well it was from controlled anger.

To the kid, who appeared on the verge of losing himself again, Rick gave his shoulder a quick squeeze and thanked him for coming to tell them. The kid nodded and hurried out. Daryl stood out of his seat, shaking his head.

Steady as usual, Rick spoke calmly. "We should go down there."

* * *

The medical room was a mess of gore.

The infected that Aubrey had brained with the microscope had not been removed but simply pushed to the side, like a pile of dirty laundry. A dark stain ran from the coagulated pool where the creature had first fallen to where it had been shoved aside. It lay up against the wall now, half on its side, half leaning on the wall, with one dead arm slung limply over its face. She could still see those blank eyes, as lifeless as a doll's, staring up at the ceiling.

Hershel had used Aubrey's cot to conduct the operation, amputating Kara's arm in a futile attempt to save her life. No anesthetic. No blood transfusions. Not even a real operating table. Just a dirty cot draped with thin plastic sheeting, now streaked and dappled with blood.

Outside, the sound of grief was like fingernails on a chalkboard to Aubrey. The weeping of families always made her feel strange and tense, and she thought of Afghani mothers pulling their limp children out of the ruins of a hut that a misguided JDAM had nearly disintegrated. Rick and a few familiar faces from what she assumed was his close group was with the people as they groaned and wept for another one lost. Not the first. Certainly not the last. But another one.

Only Hershel remained in the building. The older man sat on a crate at the table where all his medical equipment lay, his scraggly grey hair hanging over his face. He stared straight ahead, perhaps at his bloody hands that lay like dead things on the table, or perhaps simply at the wall. The sounds of grieving began to move away from the medical room.

Aubrey took a few steps over to the table where Herhsel sat and put a hand on his shoulder. The thin man cringed and shrugged it off. "Wasn't supposed to happen like this," he shook his head slowly. "It wasn't."

Aubrey didn't immediately respond. She felt awkward, like a bull tiptoeing through the proverbial china shop. Finally she decided to forgo the platitudes and stick to the facts. "Doc, you're barely even equipped to stitch someone up after a bad fall, let alone perform major surgery. It had to be done, and you were the one that had to do it. No one blames you that it didn't turn out well. It's just the way that one went."

Hershel's head tilted back and a strange, humorless chuckle escaped him. He met Aubrey's gaze and there was something intense and disturbing in it. Something that immediately made her uncomfortable. "You don't understand. They will blame me. Maybe not now, but they will. They will eventually blame me."

Aubrey opened her mouth to speak, but a heavy hand fell on her shoulder. She was preparing to turn and address the person, but then the hand was suddenly pressing down on her and spinning her small form around. Aubrey had just enough time to see the incoming haymaker and throw her left arm up to block. Her arm absorbed most of the blow but whoever the hell it was had thrown their body into it and the fist still bounced off the side of her head, causing the soldier to stumble.

_What the...?_ Subconsciously, Aubrey's feet spread wide and her elbows tucked in. She didn't register the face, only the dark, aggressive shape, narrow slits of eyes, and a grimacing face broadcasting the next blow, this one a stiff right uppercut aimed at her solar plexus.

Even as she saw the incoming strike, Aubrey's mind raced, trying to explain what was happening. It couldn't be an infected— it displayed too much control. But why would anyone in the camp want to hurt her? Was it one of the Governor's men?

Aubrey pivoted to avoid the blow, but it still caught her in the side and had enough steam behind it to send a bolt of pain into her ribs. She managed to trap the arm against her side and held it tight. Her attacker tugged back, attempting to free himself. Aubrey got low and sent a swift knee into the side of her attacker's thigh, crunching the common peroneal nerve and toppling her attacker almost immediately.

Aubrey went down with him, still holding her attacker's arm. She cocked her free hand back and was ready to deliver a hammer blow to the larynx and end the fight instantly when she took a breath and looked down, only to find a kid staring back up at her.

Maybe a little more than a kid. But definitely less than a man. Aubrey stopped herself. The moment seemed to stretch awkwardly as she stared, shocked, at the eyes of her attacker and saw nothing but pure loathing.

The only thought circling in Aubrey's head came tumbling out of her mouth: "What the fuck's wrong with you?"

There was shouting and Aubrey realized she was surrounded by a crowd that had poured in through the mouth of the medical room during the brief struggle. The shouting had a distinct sound to it that told her the crowd was not on her side.

A voice broke through the background noise: "Get off my son!"

Aubrey looked up in time to see a boot catch her in the shoulder and shove her backwards. She didn't resist the force, but rolled with it until she felt the cold steel floor across her back and then white fire from the stitches. She winced as she recovered and got her knees back under her.

More shouts: "Did you see what she did?"

"She's one of them!"

"She let those fuckers in!"

_Are they talking about me?_ Then Hershel's voice, stressed and even-pitched above the others: "Would everyone get out of my room! Get the out! OUT!"

Aubrey fought off the blazing pain in her back and focused. In front of her she

could see Hershel's back, his arm not holding the crutch spread wide. It swooped rapidly back and forth as though the crowd that had gathered were a flock of birds that might be shooed away. Over the tops of his shoulders Aubrey caught the stares of several people and she didn't like what she saw. Anger. Mistrust. Hatred. The man that Aubrey had earlier identified as Kara's father stepped forward quickly and pulled the kid up off the ground.

_Get off my son,_ he'd yelled. Which meant that Aubrey's attacker was Kara's brother. They were all family. The crowd absorbed Kara's father and brother as they backpedaled, all eyes still on Aubrey while Hershel raved at them to get out. Watching those people stare at her, Aubrey thought that she had never felt so abundantly alienated, so obviously on the outside. Did they truly blame her for what had happened? Was it just because she was a stranger to them? Or was there something else that she was missing?

Rick made his way through the gathered people like a ship's bow cutting through water. He did not look happy. Nearly a head taller than everyone else, Aubrey could see his eyes glaring from underneath furrowed brows.

"What the hell is all this about?" He shouted.

Aubrey wasn't sure whether the question was directed at her or the hostile crowd. The big man now stood between her and the crowd, with both arms stretched out as though he were holding the two parties away from each other by the sheer force of his will. Kara's father stepped out of the crowd, but didn't try to get past Rick. He just pointed one finger at Aubrey and began shouting.

"She's with the Governor! She's gotta be! We heard about the breach in the fence! She did it! It had to be her!" Spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed, his cheeks and forehead becoming red with rage.

Aubrey could tell that Rick hadn't expected that. He stood there, looking taken aback.

Hershel sounded like he was on the edge of passing out. "I don't know what you're talking about. The captain has been in the medical room all night."

Kara's father— Steve, wasn't it?— directed his ire at Hershel. "How do you know she was here? You were in the Prison building for almost an hour. She could have done it then."

Rick tried stepping in. "Steve, this is ridiculous..."

"Ridiculous?" Steve shouted. "Ridiculous that I don't want to trust the girl that just got here? Is it so crazy what I'm saying? Have we ever had a breach like that in our fences before? Someone cut that shit— Tyreese said so himself. And here we are, harboring strangers. So who do you think did it, Grimes? One of us?"

Rick floundered for a moment between calm patience and hindered fury. He could say that it was the Governor's men that cut the fence, but Steve and his supporters obviously believed that Aubrey had allied herself with the Governor. It was also clear that they were so incensed at this moment, nothing Rick could say would sway their opinion. He needed time to let the people calm down. And he needed Aubrey to speak with them. If the Captain could speak with them, she could convince them, just like she'd convinced Rick.

Forced to ride the fence, Rick nodded curtly. "Okay. Everybody out. Let me handle this."

"How are you going to handle it?" Steve demanded.

"Steve," Rick said with a quiet warning in his voice. "You know me. You know you can trust me. Now go. Let me handle this." Steve seemed to consider the words as he stared at Aubrey with barely controlled anger. His fists, balled at his side, his lips a thin gash across his face, tears welling up in his eyes. But eventually he nodded to Rick, and he turned away from them. The hostile grumble of the crowd died to a low murmur as everyone followed Steve out of the building.

Aubrey stood up, feeling weakness in the muscles along her spine and then a brief chill washed over her that stung at the wounds on her back and then quieted. The two faced each other a few feet apart, and Aubrey waited.

"Are you okay?" Rick spoke quietly and for the first time Aubrey sensed the complicated depth of the relationship between Rick and the people of Camp Ryder.

The strong man, yes. The figurehead, yes. Their brave spokesman, yes. But he was not in control in a situation like this. When fear was the dominate emotion, he issued orders and people listened, because fearful people need a leader. But when anger took over, the mob became more powerful, and the leader became just a mouthpiece.

Aubrey nodded slowly. "I'm assuming that was Kara's family."

"Yes." There was a long silence, in which Rick looked deep in mental calculations. After a moment, he looked to Hershel. "How long until her stitches heal?"

Hershel, flustered and sweating now, raked a finger through is snowy hair. "Uh... Six weeks until I take them out."

"How long until she's healed enough to go out?"

Hershel looked at Aubrey. "Probably a week before I could be sure the wounds won't get infected. But they won't be properly healed and they could tear open and renew the chance for infection."

Rick let a slow, deep breath hiss through his teeth. "Captain, is there any proof you can give me that you aren't with the Governor's men?"

Aubrey's stomach dropped. Was this for real? Were they all serious about this? An hour ago, she was their friend, and now they were accusing her of being a spy for the Governor? It bordered on absurdity. But as absurd as she thought it was, she had no way to refute it. No way but to simply deny the charges.

"No. I don't have any proof. Just my word."

"Okay. We'll figure something out." Then Rick turned. "Glenn! Daryl!"

The two men appeared suddenly out of the crowd, appearing red faced and uncomfortable. They walked awkwardly into the medical room, flanking Rick. Glenn on the right, Daryl on the left.

Aubrey tensed. She eyeballed the two men, finding herself evaluating them as she would an enemy combatant. She did not want to harm these people, but if it came down to violence, she intended to be the one walking away.

Glenn looked mean but Aubrey was confident in her earlier assessment of the man. As tough as the Asian had become, he'd still led a cushy life prior to the collapse of society. Aubrey could probably overpower him easily. Daryl posed a bit more of a problem. He looked like he enjoyed a fight and had the look of someone that got into his fair share of them. While he might not have any formal training, experience was more important. Aubrey hedged her bets that Daryl was a stand-up fighter. She would need to take his legs out.

Rick looked at Aubrey, but spoke to his men. "Watch the captain while Hershel tends to her." Rick swiped a quick hand across his brow. "I'm sorry, Captain. But I don't think you should leave the room for right now."

Aubrey's shoulders pinched up slightly. "Am I being arrested?" Her eyes traveled back and forth between Rick, Glenn and Daryl. None of them had an answer for her, because it was the truth, but they didn't want to admit it. She was being arrested. She had come to Camp Ryder and promised them supplies and assistance, and rather than accept her help, they were holding her in a room, inside a prison, against her will.

_Looking the gift-horse in the mouth._

Aubrey had the urge to tell them to go fuck themselves. She could make a break for it, still in possession of the GPS. She could continue this mission with another group, one less paranoid and less hostile. But the nagging thought occurred to her: what if there's no one else? And what about Angela and Sara and Grimm and Duane? And what about the mission?

She had to focus on the mission. In this surreal situation, the concept of the mission was, for once, a comfort. It grounded her and gave her a sense of the big picture. This was not personal, it was business, and her business was the completion of her mission. This was a community that she could render aid to, a community that eventually could not only provide stability in the region, but a waypoint for her to base further operations out of. This was the first step. But she had to earn their trust. It would not be given. The only alternative was to abandon them. If she abandoned them they would conclude that they had been right about her all along. Their group of survivors would either whither and die, or eventually Aubrey would have to deal with them again. And they would be much harder to convince the next time around. If Camp Ryder was going to be an asset to her, it was now or never.

Aubrey stood up and very slowly raised her right hand. With her left, she pulled up the smiley-face t-shirt, exposing the small pocket pistol she'd stuck in her waistband. She watched them all stare at the pistol, even some of the people outside. The implication Aubrey made was obvious.

A guilty person, someone spying for the Governor, would have kept the weapon so she could later escape with it. Instead she was choosing to cooperate.

Aubrey nodded to Daryl. "Go ahead."

Daryl glanced up at Aubrey's face, his eyes sharp as arrowheads. She thought that maybe Daryl would get some sort of satisfaction from this, considering he had not been a fan of Aubrey's to begin with, but he did not appear to be enjoying himself. In fact, he looked even more miserable than usual.

"Glenn," Rick spoke quietly. "Take the gun from Captain Thomson, please." Glenn stepped forward cautiously.

Aubrey could see that Glenn was at odds with himself. Part of him wanted to believe in his friends and family, that Aubrey was the enemy, that the untrustworthy outsider had been the cause of all this great misfortune. The other part of him knew that this was wrong, that she was there to help. A third part was just scared that the Captain was going to snap his neck if he got to close. But Aubrey remained as frozen as though she were sculpted of marble.

Glenn stepped forward slowly, his eyes meeting the woman's, and in them she could see a silent apology. He plucked the gun from her midsection.

Someone from the crowd yelled, "What about that thing in her pocket?"

And another, "Yeah, take it away from her!"

Glenn and Aubrey both glanced down at her right front pocket and the handheld GPS unit bulging awkwardly from the athletic shorts. Glenn didn't move for it. He looked at Aubrey as though asking permission.

She shook her head slightly and said, "Don't."

The man nodded and retreated. There was a disapproving grumble from the crowd and Rick spun on them. "That is her personal property and we won't be taking it from her. She's been detained based on your accusations but we're not treating her like some common criminal."

The gathering remained silent this time. Rick turned to Hershel. "See to her, please."

Then to Aubrey, "I am truly sorry, Captain. But the situation being what it is, you may have very limited time to recover. I think you may have to produce what you promised sooner than either of us expected."

* * *

After Hershel checked her wounds and cleaned them, she sat patiently waiting with Daryl and Glenn chattering to themselves. Aubrey began to notice the trickle of passersby thickening, everyone going in the same direction: toward the square and she could not shake the image of an old western town where all the ladies in their pretty dresses showed up to watch a guilty person hang. It wasn't long before Rick appeared. He nodded to Daryl and Glenn, who both stood up languidly and stretched. Then he walked to Aubrey and stood before her with his hands clasped neutrally in front of him. He looked at Hershel who was washing his hands and then his gaze found Aubrey again.

"You need to understand something," he said. "I don't run the show around here. These people, they don't know what the fuck they're doing. But they like to think that they do. So when the shit hits the fan, they all look to me to tell them what to do. I'm a security blanket. They think, if all else fails, Rick will know what to do." He looked bitter. "But I don't control them. And right now there are fifty people outside that are making up their mind about you. Kara's family is convinced that you're with the Governor and you sabotaged our fence—"

"That's ridiculous!" Aubrey scoffed.

Rick looked at her. "I know it is. I'm not saying that's what I believe, I'm saying that's what is being said. A lot of people are buying it because... well, it's easy to blame the new people. I just wanted to let you know what the sentiment was like out there."

There was a moment of silence. "Is this a trial?" Aubrey said, quietly.

Rick shook his head. "Just a meeting. Not everybody has had a chance to speak with you. Most of the people in camp are forming their opinions from word-of-mouth. I figured having you stand up in front of everyone would be best, that way they could form their own opinions."

Aubrey nodded. "And what should I do?"

"Answer their questions. Hopefully they believe you."

"No one's going to believe me, Rick." she lowered her voice. "Not unless someone inside Camp Ryder sides with me."

"Captain, some of the people already believe you. Most of them want to believe you. You give them something to hope for." Rick scratched his neck. "But I can't take sides right now."

Aubrey stared at him blankly and Rick knew he had to explain it.

"It's complicated," he said flatly. "This place isn't as unified as it may seem. There are people here that don't agree with how I'm doing things, and they will use my siding with you as a sign of disloyalty and turn the camp against me." He sighed. "I don't like playing political games. I've never been good at them. But I also can't just stand by and watch someone destroy us from the inside. I'm sorry, but I have to stay neutral."

"Rick," Aubrey stood up from her cot. "Just promise me that we can leave unharmed, if it comes to that. My dog, Angela, Sara, and Duane. If they choose to come."

Rick thought for a little longer than Aubrey was comfortable with. He eventually nodded his head, but despite the gesture, she didn't think it was a promise that Rick was going to be able to keep.

* * *

The people gathered in moody silence. They stared with stony faces as Aubrey approached, flanked by Daryl and Glenn and led by Rick. Behind them, Angela, Sara, and Duane followed with Hershel and Becky.

Aubrey scanned the crowd and found Kara's father and brother conspicuously absent.

Standing before them, she felt silly in the hand-me-down garb. It was difficult enough to convince people of her mission when she was wearing her full battle rattle because of her size and gender, let alone when she was clad in only a smiley-face t-shirt and some athletic shorts. It did not lend to her credibility.

Rick stood between Aubrey and the people of Camp Ryder and shifted his weight to one leg. "Alright, folks. Regardless of what you believe, let's try to keep this orderly and decent. This is Captain Aubrey Thomson, and the woman there is Angela and the two kids are Sara and Duane, if you haven't met them already. I know there's been a lot said. Rumors tend to fly pretty quickly around here, but we need to be reasonable. This woman has offered us something, and we need to figure out whether we're going to trust her and accept it, or whether we want her to leave our camp."

Rick took a moment to moisten his lips and scratch his beard. "Now that everyone knows what we're doing here, ya'll can ask what you need to ask, but let's do it one at a time."

Almost immediately a hand shot up and Aubrey thought _Oh boy... here we go._

"Yeah," Rick pointed to the raised hand. "Go ahead, Keith."

Keith was an older man, possibly in his mid-sixties, with a thin head of gray hair, a craggy face, and thin features. Acknowledged, Keith lowered his hand and stuck it in the pocket of his overalls. He gave Aubrey a scrutinizing stare, up and down, as though he was learning everything he needed to know about her simply by her body language.

"I guess I'll go ahead and say it, since most of us are thinking it." Keith said. "You don't strike me as some secret government super-soldier sent to save us all. You look... pretty normal. S'pose what I'm getting at here is, if you're such hot shit, where's your guns? Where's your uniform? Where's all these supplies you're supposed to have?"

There was a murmur of assent from the crowd. Everyone wanted an answer to that one.

"That's a fair question," Aubrey said, trying to take it in stride. "I'll be completely honest with you. I'm no super-soldier, but I am good at what I do. If you want to know where my equipment is, I will tell you. It's in a bunker twenty feet below the ashes of my house, which this Governor burned to the ground." She quickly added, "I have access to more supplies, I just…" The crowd grumbled disapprovingly.

A new speaker stepped forward, this one a woman with pale skin and dark black hair pulled back into a ponytail. "But you haven't given us any proof. Where are these supplies you keep talking about?"

"I've been here for a day," Aubrey said, trying not to show irritation. "I haven't exactly had a chance to make the trip just yet, but when I do..."

"Why didn't you just take them with you?" It was a male voice. "Why didn't you bring your supplies here?"

Aubrey began to feel uncomfortable. She didn't like being put on the spot, and despite what Rick said, it didn't seem like many people believed her.

"Part of my job is to help survivors. Angela and her daughter were trapped. When I set out to help them, I didn't bring all the equipment with me because it would have weighed me down. When I returned home, I found my house burned to the ground. I couldn't go get a refill on supplies because I needed to find a safe place for them first."

Angela spoke up this time, hesitantly. "It's true. Sara and me, we were trapped on the roof of our house. Captain Thomson saved us, but when she was doing that, some men took her truck and they found her house. We hiked back, but Captain Thomson's house had been burned to the ground." She paused for a moment and nodded at Aubrey. "I didn't believe it at first either. But Captain Thomson knows what she's doing. If you'd seen her fight, you'd believe her too."

"How do we know you're not with the Governor?" someone shouted. The crowd got louder, everyone clamoring together.

"What if you're spies?"

"Is this all just a trick?"

Aubrey took a deep breath while Rick cast an icy stare out into the crowd but remained silent. Eventually the gathering quieted, and another person said, "Did you sabotage our fence?"

This time the question was met with more of a murmur than a shout.

"No." Aubrey said simply, because she knew any other, more complicated answer would be seen as dodging the question.

"Can you prove you're not with the Governor?"

Aubrey was about to answer when Daryl stepped forward, clearly frustrated with the way they were talking to the woman. "Can I say something?"

Rick nodded and the people looked at Daryl expectantly. Daryl turned to address them. "I don't know where this rumor started about the Captain being with the Governor. I don't know whether the captain has all the things she says she has. But I was there when she and Angela and those two little kids were runnin' from the Governor's men… the same men you people were all cozy with a few months ago. I know I saw the Governor's guys tryin' their damnedest to shoot the captain. I know Glenn saw the captain pull herself through rusty nails just to get away. So if you were to ask me whether she's with the Governor or not, I would hafta say no."

There was a moment of silence as everyone seemed to mull this over. After sending a grateful smile to Daryl who met her eyes, she turned back and watched the faces as they exchanged looks and murmured amongst themselves.

"I guess what everyone's concerned with," a new voice said. "Is whether we can trust this so-called captain to follow through with what she has promised."

The new speaker was a tall woman, this one the polar opposite of Angela, who looked like she'd been in suburban homes all her life. This was a business lady, someone that fancied herself a politician. She had the bearing of someone that came from money, and the soft, pleasant face of someone that has seen less of the hard times than those around her with her light complexion and dark curly hair.

Aubrey immediately disliked her.

The speaker stepped out and then turned so that the crowd was to her left and Aubrey was to her right. Her stance told Aubrey this was practiced stage-presence. A glance over to Rick confirmed that the big guy also did not buy into the speaker's bullshit. However, to Aubrey's dismay, the crowd seemed to find her enchanting.

A manipulator. A politician.

Perhaps this was the person Rick had suggested was attempting to wrest control of the camp from him. Aubrey had to agree with Rick's assessment that the camp would not be in good hands if that were to happen.

To Aubrey, the woman said, "You do recall your promise? In exchange for us taking you and your group in and providing you with what we could, you claimed to be able to produce food, water, weapons, and medical supplies." The woman smiled disarmingly. "I know that Rick had the best of intentions when he let you into our camp. However, I think I speak for everyone here when I say that, in light of the security breach, we're going to need something more than just your word if you want to continue to stay here."

There was a chorus of "yeah", "that's right", and "you tell 'em!"

"Excuse me! Hold on…" Hershel started. "No. No. If you're trying to say that Captain Thomson should leave to get supplies, that is out of the question for at least another week. The lady has muscle damage and is probably in a lot of pain— in fact, I'm surprised she's holding it together as we speak. Plus, there's still the chance for gangrene to set in and I need to monitor…"

"I can leave tomorrow," Aubrey said.

Hershel looked at her. "No you can't. You won't be nearly healed enough to…"

Aubrey crossed her arms. "I fought today. I can fight tomorrow. If that's what it takes to get this done, then that's what I'll do."

Even the politician's mouth closed as she processed this. No one had expected her to answer up so readily. The truth was, Aubrey despised the idea. The cuts on her back still burned and stung with every movement. She had also hoped to enjoy the relative safety of Camp Ryder for longer than a day before being thrust back out into the dangerous wilderness that America had become. There was safety in numbers here, and there was water. The thought of leaving that made Aubrey's stomach flip-flop, the same as it flip-flopped when she hadn't received that check-in from Colonel Sam so many long days ago. No amount of training or experience made death any less frightening. You just learned to work around it. So she found herself once again stuffing that feeling down. Forcing herself to do the job that needed to be done, no matter how uncomfortable, no matter how dangerous. That was Aubrey's lot in life, and while sometimes it nearly overwhelmed her, she would always make her peace with it.

It was built into her DNA just as much as the color of her eyes or the shape of her face.

Rick spoke up. "You can't go out alone. Someone will have to go with you."

The politician, as Aubrey decided was the other woman's rank, cleared her voice. "I'm sorry if I am being too blunt, but I don't think anyone here trusts the captain enough to accompany her when we don't even know where her loyalties lie. We've just lost one of our own under suspicious circumstances, and while we can't prove Mrs. Thomson had anything to do with it, we can't disprove it either."

A woman in the front of the crowd put her hands on her hips. "If I remember correctly, Karen, Captain Thomson was the one that tried to help Kara, not you. I also recall that we were all facing the opposite direction until Captain Thomson had the brains to look behind us. Seems like more people would have been hurt if she hadn't been there. Frankly I think we should thank her."

Karen The Politician knew not to argue a good point, so she raised her hands in mock-defeat and tried a different tactic. "Carol, if you trust her so much, perhaps you should volunteer to go with her."

Carol's eyes became sharp daggers. "I have responsibilities here, Karen. Unlike yourself."

Karen ignored the jab and turned to the crowd with a smile. "Does anyone else trust the captain so much that they would like to accompany her on this trip? Anyone?"

Under the ear-ringing silence, Aubrey regarded Rick who stood like an angered god with his brawny arms crossed over his chest and a deep redness taking over his olive complexion. It was obvious there was no love lost between Rick and Karen. The silence stretched on.

"I'm goin' with her."

Aubrey was surprised to find Daryl stepping forward, staring at Karen with much the same look as Rick. Daryl was loyal to Rick, and an enemy of your friend is your enemy too.

Aubrey could tell that Daryl volunteered less because he believed in Aubrey and more out of spite towards the people… perhaps towards Karen? Was there a reason? Whatever the reason, Aubrey appreciated it.

It didn't take long for Glenn to follow. "I'm going too."

Karen looked first shocked, and then sour.

Aubrey nodded at Daryl and Glenn and felt gratitude, regardless of their motives. Rick smiled fiercely at Karen and a few others that looked just as unpleased. "I guess it's settled then. Daryl and Glenn will accompany Captain Thomson. They will leave tomorrow."

* * *

**Ok everyone! Next chapter (3 months from now) will be really big! With a little more action for Daryl and Aubrey! **

**Also we will have a little more on the strange relationship between Karen and Daryl as well. Obviously she thought she had a little more power in the group by sleeping with Daryl a few times… Think again lady! Hahahahaa! **

**No you're right… I don't like her much lol **

**Please review everyone! Please! Just so I know if I have readers!**


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